Showtime visits movies with Clooney

US network Showtime is developing a drama from Hollywood star George Clooney about the American movie business in the early 1990s.

The Studio (working title) has been written by Peter Tolan, one of the main writers on HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show and, more recently, the FX comedy drama Rescue Me.

The show follows two male best friends as they run a film studio and struggle to maintain their humanity against the backdrop of Hollywood excess.

Sony Pictures Television (SPT) is on board to produce the pilot, which will be directed by Bennett Miller, who was recently behind the camera on the Oscar-tipped feature Foxcatcher.

Clooney and Tolan will exec produce via their respective production outfits Smokehouse Pictures and Fedora Entertainment, both of which have overall deals with SPT, alongside Miller, Grant Heslov and Michael Wimer.