Gentleman prefers Clooney

By Peter Bowen On May 19, 2009

Among the hustle and bustle at the Cannes Film Festival, Focus Features announced one more thing to hustle and bustle about. George Clooney will be staring in the new film A Very Private Gentleman. Anton Corbijn, who made a splash with his 2007 Control, a stylized bio-pic of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, will direct this adaptation of Martin Booth exquisitely creepy thriller of the same name. In the novel, the citizens of the sleepy Italian city in which "Signor Farfalla” (Clooney’s character) has taken up residence know him as a private man who paints miniatures of butterflies. Few suspect that his day job is as to create high-tech weapons for private assassins. The casting makes perfect sense. Clooney also has taken up residence in a small Italian town.