George Clooney Joins Producing Team for August: Osage County Film

Smokehouse Productions’ George Clooney and Grant Heslov have joined Harvey Weinstein to produce the big screen adaptation of Tracy Letts' Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County, according to Deadline.com. As previously reported, the film will star Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts as Violet Weston and Barbara Fordham, respectively. The movie, directed John Wells and adapted by Letts, will begin filming in the fall of 2012. Further casting will be announced shortly.

August: Osage County tells the story of the Westons, an extended clan that comes together at their rural Oklahoma homestead after the alcoholic patriarch disappears. Forced to confront unspoken truths and astonishing secrets, the family must also contend with their mother Violet, a pill-popping, deeply unsettled woman at the center of the storm.

After its premiere at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, August: Osage County, directed by Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro, opened on Broadway on December 4, 2007. The play went on to win the 2008 Best Play Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize during a run that ended on June 28, 2009. The production played a sold-out eight-week engagement at London’s National Theatre, and a limited run in Sydney, Australia. Tracy Letts and the play's original Barbara Fordham, Amy Morton, will co-star this fall in a Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.