“Good Night, and Good Luck” is suiting up for a series adaptation of the 2005 George Clooney film, with potential placement at AMC and AMC+.
Writer-director Jonathan Glatzer (“Better Call Saul,” “Succession”) will lead the writers’ room. Should the series be greenlit, he will serve as showrunner and executive producer, alongside Clooney, Grant Heslov and co-executive producer Rebecca Arzoian for Smokehouse Pictures, Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner and Haley Jones for 2929 Productions and Jeff Skoll and Miura Kite for Participant.
Heslov, who co-wrote the original film’s screenplay with Clooney, is set to direct the first episode.
Starring David Strathairn, Clooney, Patricia Clarkson and Jeff Daniels, the film followed broadcast news luminary Edward R. Murrow’s battle to expose the injustices of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist crusades. It made $54.6 million at the worldwide box office, and was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Clooney.
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The new series revolves around Sy Steingartner, a young cameraman for Murrow’s “See It Now,” who must find a balance between his admiration for Murrow and his own ambition. With the CBS brass pushing Murrow and his staff to submit to an anti-Communist Loyalty Oath, Sy has an opportunity to rise straight to the top – by betraying his mentor. “Good Night, and Good Luck” aims to confront how we respond to chaos and the values that pull us through.
“As a massive fan of the movie, I didn’t want to copy it, or just do a facsimile of it. So, we’ve expanded the world to show how the division and hysteria of the times seeped into every aspect of daily life,” said showrunner Jonathan Glatzer. “I suppose it’s more of an origin story of where we are today.”
“Good Night, and Good Luck” is being developed under AMC Networks’ “scripts-to-series” model, in which writers’ rooms are opened to develop prospective series with the goal of earning a straight-to-
series order. In that event, AMC Studios would produce the six-episode series with Smokehouse, Participant and 2929 Productions. AMC Networks holds worldwide exclusive rights to the series.
