Hulu's Catch-22 teaser: George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, Christopher Abbott prove 'insanity is contagious'

Hulu dropped the first teaser trailer for its upcoming adaptation of Joseph Heller’s 1961 classic novel, Catch-22. The web series is about a member of a US bomber squadron fighting the higher-ups in the military bureaucracy and it sees George Clooney returning to TV for the first time in almost 20 years. [caption id=“attachment_6072471” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] George Clooney in a still from Catch-22 teaser. Hulu[/caption] Set during World War II, the six-part miniseries follows a US bombardier named Yossarian who is infuriated that the army keeps raising the number of missions he must fly to be released from duty. Yossarian’s only way to avoid the missions is to declare insanity, but the only way to prove insanity is a willingness to embark on more of the highly dangerous bombing runs, thus creating the novel’s absurd ‘catch-22.’ Christopher Abbott stars as Yossarian and Kyle Chandler plays his commander, Colonel Cathcart. Clooney originally planned to play Cathcart but instead took a supporting role as training commander Scheisskopf. Hugh Laurie, who plays Major de Coverley, also features prominently in the action-packed teaser. The cast also includes Giancarlo Giannini as Marcello, Daniel David Stewart as mess officer Milo Minderbinder, Rafi Gavron as Captain “Aarfy” Aardvark, Austin Stowell as the cheerful Nately, Graham Patrick Martin as bomber pilot Orr, Gerran Howell as the underage Kid Sampson, Jon Rudnitsky as the level-headed pilot McWatt, Kevin J. O’Connor as Cathcart’s right-hand man Korn, Pico Alexander as Clevinger, Tessa Ferrer as Nurse Duckett, Lewis Pullman as Major Major, Josh Bolt as Dunbar, Jay Paulson as the shy Chaplain, and Julie Ann Emery as Marion. It was made into a 1970 movie directed by Mike Nichols with Alan Arkin as Yossarian. Catch-22 is set to premiere on 17 May on Hulu. A release date for India hasn’t been confirmed yet. Watch the trailer here:

(With inputs from Reuters)