‘Catch-22’ casting shuffle: Kyle Chandler takes over as Cathcart, George Clooney switches roles

Kyle Chandler is joining the “Catch-22” series at Hulu as Col. Cathcart, the role originally set to be played by George Clooney, Variety has confirmed.

Clooney, who is also co-directing and executive producing the series, will instead take on a smaller role to focus more on his behind the camera duties. He will now play Scheisskopf, the training commander at Yossarian’s cadet school.

See photos of Kyle Chandler:

The six-part limited series is based on Joseph Heller’s classic novel of the same name. Set in Italy during World War II, the story focuses on Capt. John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott), a US Air Force bombardier who is furious because the bureaucratic rule known as Catch-22, which specifies that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers which are real and immediate is the process of a rational mind; a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but a request to be removed from duty is evidence of sanity and therefore makes him ineligible to be relieved from duty.