“If in your final moments you see death, think not of death. Think of the living,” Kyle Chandler’s American Air force Captain John Yossarian roars to his fellow bombardiers in the trailer of Hulu’s upcoming world War II-set series Catch-22. “And know that your sacrifice will not have been in vain.”
The six-episode series is based on Joseph Heller’s popular satirical 1961 novel of the same name, and has been directed by George Clooney. According to its official synopsis, the series follows “the adventures and misadventures of a US air squadron in Italy in World War II,” where Christopher Abbott plays a frustrated dodger, Clooney plays the madcap Scheisskopf and Hugh Laurie is a “slightly checked-out” Major de Coverley.
Heller’s coinage, which refers to a situation whose contradictions make it impossible to escape, is now a part of the English lexicon.
The series will be available for streaming on Hulu from May 17. The novel was earlier adapted into a film of the same name in 1970 by American filmmaker Mike Nichols.