Even if you’ve never read the classic novel, “Catch-22,” you probably have heard the title used as a term at some point. Well, in the new Hulu series, based on the aforementioned work by writer Joseph Heller, you’ll be able to skip the required reading and watch some Hollywood stars give you the basics of the story.
And as seen in the new trailer, the off-beat series, “Catch-22,” follows a WWII bombardier that is so worked up over the prospect of dying as part of one of his missions, that he’s attempting to get out of being a pilot by claiming he’s insane. However, by claiming he’s insane and doesn’t want to fly the missions during war, he’s showing that he actually is sane and therefore, must fly the missions. You see, it’s a Catch-22.
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“The most important part to us was casting Chris [Abbott],” says George Clooney (via Variety), who stars in the series and is the director of several episodes. He adds that by Episode 6 of the series, “we’ll have earned the right to really pull for Yossarian. But through that journey, he does some kind of crappy things. You have to, along the way, still root for him in the way you would Danny DeVito in ‘Taxi.’”
Joining Abbott in the cast are Kyle Chandler, Hugh Laurie, Giancarlo Giannini, and of course, Clooney.
“Catch-22” premieres on Hulu on May 17.
Here’s the synopsis:
Christopher Abbott is Yossarian, a bombardier, whose frantic obsession every time he goes up on a mission is “to come down alive”. His odds of success at such a simple aim keep getting worse, because Colonel Cathcart (Kyle Chandler) keeps raising the number of missions the men have to fly. More than the retreating Germans, the real enemy for Yossarian and his rag-tag bunch of friends is the bureaucracy of the military, inverting logic at every turn. The pinnacle of this is Catch-22, a military by-law which states that if you fly your missions, you’re crazy, and don’t have to fly them; all you have to do is ask. But if you as not to, then you’re sane, and so you have to fly them. George Clooney stars as the barking mad, parade-obsessed Scheisskopf. Hugh Laurie is the mellow, slightly checked-out Major de Coverley. Clooney directs the six-episode series, along with Grant Heslov and Ellen Kuras.