George Clooney Casts ‘Girls’ Star Christopher Abbot in ‘Catch-22’ Series

Girls star Christopher Abbott has been cast as the lead in George Clooney‘s upcoming Hulu series, Catch-22, based on the seminal Joseph Heller novel.

Variety reports Abbott, best known for his stint as Charlie Dattalo on HBO‘s Girls and most recently, USA Network’s The Sinner, will star alongside Clooney who is set to play Col. Cathcart in addition to serving as executive producer and co-director.

Clooney’s longtime producing partner, Grant Heslov, will also direct a portion of the series in addition to executive producing the anticipated series.

In a statement from Hulu, the six-part limited series based on Heller’s classic novel of the same name set in Italy during World War II, will focus on Capt. John Yossarian (Abbott), a US Air Force bombardier furious over bureaucratic rule known as Catch-22, who, along with his squad, attempts to maintain sanity while fulfilling service requirements in hopes to return home.

Richard Brown and Steve Olin will executive produce on behalf of Anonymous Content. Filming is slated to begin this spring. According to Deadline, Catch-22 is the third limited series ordered by Hulu, following the high-profile 11.22.63, produced by J.J. Abrams, and the upcoming 9/11-themed series The Looming Tower.

The book was also made into a 1970 film, directed by Mike Nichols and starred Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam and Bob Balaban.

This is not the only project coming from Clooney this year. The 56-year-old Academy Award winner is also heading to Netflix with a new series chronicling the Watergate scandal.

Partnering with Bridge of Spies writer Matt Charman and Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures partner Grant Heslov, Watergate will be an eight-part limited series that is expected to explore the key characters involved in the political conspiracy.

Deadline reports Clooney’s publicist confirmed the series, which will have each episode focus on an individual surrounding the ’70s scandal, stylized after the famous Japanese period drama Rashomon, which will outline the same event with contradictory interpretations by different individuals involved.