George Clooney is set to direct The Boys in the Boat, which is about the University of Washington's inauspicious rowing team who went on to win gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The Observer reports that the film is based on Daniel James Brown's 2013 non-fiction novel, The Boys in the Boat (Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold).
Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) - who has been working on Quentin Tarantino's Star Trek script - has written the screenplay.
The Boys in the Boat was shortlisted for 2013's William Hill Sports Book of the Year. The protagonist is Joe Rantz, who was cast aside by his family at an early age, abandoned and left to fend for himself in the woods of Washington State, young turns to rowing as a way of escaping his past.
To the surprise of most, Joe and eight other working class boys from the University of Washington find themselves striving for glory in Berlin. In the event they narrowly beat Italy and Germany to win the gold medal.
Clooney's next film The Midnight Sky is in post-production. The film is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton.
Clooney, who also directs, plays a forlorn scientist stranded in the Arctic. He is desperately trying to stop a group of astronauts from returning home to a post-apocalyptic global catastrophe. This science-fiction feature will be distributed by Netflix.
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