George Clooney‘s The Midnight Sky, which he both directs and stars in, will debut on Netflix later this month, but he’s already getting started on his next project. This one is set up at Amazon and is a coming of age film titled The Tender Bar, and Ben Affleck is already on board to star.
The film is based on J.R. Moehringer‘s bestselling 2005 memoir, which recalls the time he spent searching for unlikely father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar in Long Island. Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed) will adapt the memoir, and Clooney will also produce the film with his Smokehouse partner Grant Heslov as well as former Amazon exec Ted Hope.
Amazon acquired the project out of turnaround from Sony, which had been developing the film with Hidden Figures director Ted Melfi. So this is another example of a streamer picking up a project from a traditional studio in an uncertain time for Hollywood.
Clooney has acted in every one of the films he’s directed with the exception of Suburbicon. He may end up in front of the camera in some capacity here, but this will be Affleck’s film. Just like his recent turn as an alcoholic basketball coach in The Way Back, Affleck excels at these kind of lost soul roles, so he’s a great fit here.
Affleck also has erotic thriller Deep Water and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel lined up, and as a director he’s prepping a film about the making of Chinatown titled The Big Goodbye.
As mentioned, Clooney’s The Midnight Sky will hit Netflix on Wednesday December 23. It’s a post-apocalyptic thriller where a lonely scientist in the Arctic tries to stop a team of astronauts led by Felicity Jones from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.
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