While Geroge Clooney does make big commercial movies, you can tell his heart is really in more serious fare that looks at the political and media landscape, such as Good Night And Good Luck, Syriana and Michael Clayton. He’s already got The Ides Of March in the works, about an idealistic staffer who gets caught up in a web os scandal surrounding a potential presidential candidate, and now The Oberserver reports he wants to take Luck Prebble’s play about the downfall of Enron to the big screen.
The play, simply titled ENRON, was a huge hit in the West End, but struggled on Broadway. While it appears the director and British cast of the stage version had thought about trying to turn it cinematic, it’s Clooney and his US backers who swooped in, so that while Prebble will write the screenplay, it’s unlikely any of the UK actors will survive the transition to the big screen.
Clooney is currently down to produce and probably direct, although it’s not known whether he will also star. Fellow producer Laura Ziskin says the movie will have a different ‘take’ than the play, adding “Once you’ve done something you’ve done it. Let that stand on its own… This is an American story.”
Until the current financial crisis, Enron was the biggest corporate bankruptcy in history, with the energy conglomerate imploding once massive amounts of dodgy dealing, faked profits and all round bad practice was uncovered.