Catch-22 (miniseries)  Catch-22 is a satirical dark comedy miniseries based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Joseph Heller. It premiered on May 17, 2019, on Hulu in the United States. The series stars Christopher Abbott, Kyle Chandler, Hugh Laurie, and George Clooney, who is also an executive producer alongside Grant Heslov, Luke Davies, David Michôd, Richard Brown, Steve Golin, and Ellen Kuras. The series was written by Davies and Michôd and directed by Clooney, Heslov, and Kuras, with each directing two episodes. John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) is a United States Army Air Forces bombardier in World War II, furious that thousands of people are trying to kill him and that his own army keeps increasing the number of missions he must fly. He is trapped by the bureaucratic rule Catch-22, which considers a willingness to fly dangerous combat missions to be insane, yet a request to be relieved of duty on the grounds of insanity to be the process of a rational mind, so any such request must be denied. He chose bombardier hoping the war would finish before his lengthy training but now sits exposed in the nose of a B-25 dropping bombs on strangers who are trying to kill him, unless he is avoiding flying by feigning illness, sabotaging his intercom, self-inflicted illness, or clandestinely moving the bomb line so it appears their target has already been captured. The events occur in the Mediterranean theatre of World War II while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the (fictionalized) island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, and conducting bombing raids over heavily defended fascist controlled Italy. Events are largely on base and in the air; there are later events in Italy and early scenes of basic training in the US. Around 2014, producer Richard Brown, writer Luke Davies and writer-director David Michôd discussed properties that they would like to tackle in limited series format similar to "True Detective", which Brown had just executive produced. Davies brought up Heller's novel, which the trio agreed would benefit from a longer treatment than the two hours of Mike Nichols' 1970 feature film. The screen rights to the novel were held by Paramount Television where Anonymous Content had a deal. Davies and Michôd co-wrote the adaptation, which Brown developed at Anonymous. Michôd was originally set to direct until he became unavailable as a long-gestating feature film of his moved forward in production.