George Clooney figured it this way: If he was going to come back to television, he might as well do something different.

That’s not my lede; that intro belongs to Hilary De Vries. She wrote it for The New York Times in April 2000 when Clooney first returned to television. Just a year after he left the cast of “E.R.,” the former Doug Ross convinced CBS president Leslie Moonves to mount a live production of “Fail Safe,” one of the actor’s favorite films.

“I suggested we do a remake and Les said ‘Yes,'” Clooney said 25 years ago. “Then I said, ‘Let’s do it live,’ and Les said ‘OK,’ and then I said, ‘And let’s do it in black-and-white,’ and he said, ‘Then you have to be in it.’ […] I thought that was a fair trade-off to get CBS to do something — a live broadcast — that they hadn’t done in more than 30 years.”

Now, it’s nearly 30 years later (give or take a presidential term) and Clooney is back with another live TV production inspired by a black-and-white film — this time, one of his own. “Good Night, and Good Luck,” adapted from Clooney’s 2005 movie, has proven just as successful on Broadway as it was in theaters. The movie netted $54 million off a $7 million budget en route to six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. On stage, it became the first play to earn more than $4 million in a single week, and CNN claims it’s the “highest-grossing play in Broadway history.” On Sunday, the show will compete for five Tony Awards, including a potential Best Actor trophy for Clooney.

But what happens one night earlier may mean more to the awards circuit veteran: “Good Night, and Good Luck’s” penultimate performance is set to air on CNN (and stream on Max), straight from the Winter Garden Theatre, marking the first time a play has ever been broadcast and televised live from Broadway.

“I can’t tell you how exciting it is to do something that’s never been done,” Clooney said in a press release. “CNN is the perfect place to bring this story of courage to so many more people than we could have ever hoped. Live TV. No net. Buckle up everyone.”

He’s right. What audiences will see Saturday night on CNN is something different. Musicals have been recorded, edited, and released (like “Hamilton” on Disney+, “Purlie Victorious” on PBS, and Sony Pictures Classics’ upcoming “Merrily We Roll Along”), and plays have been live-streamed, but those are typically smaller productions on niche services. TV, even in its modern bifurcated state, is a whole other ballgame. Considering the number of plays that have wowed New York since live television became an American utility, the event’s significance may feel hard to grasp.

But the presence at its center is easy to embrace. Few A-list stars trust and encourage the connection television creates between an artist and their audience like George Clooney. It’s as evident in the stories he tells as the ways he tells them. Conversely, the goodwill earned from his decades-long relationship with viewers makes him a trusted figure — someone we’ve welcomed into our homes before and will be eager to greet again, whether in a familiar role or via an unprecedented event. For as unlikely as it would sound 25 years ago, bringing “Good Night, and Good Luck” from the big screen to Broadway and from Broadway to our living rooms now seems inevitable; an ideal bridge from one medium to another, with Clooney as the perfect guide to usher us across.

Speaking Up with ‘Fail Safe’

Clooney’s charisma doesn’t need a thorough dissection — it’s always been obvious, even if he’s sharpened it to a lethal point over the years — but whether you first met him as Doug (on “E.R.”), Ace (on “E/R”), or plain ol’ George (on “The Facts of Life”), those early roles left an impression. On NBC’s megahit medical drama, he was a hero. A doctor who saved kids’ lives by day and hit the town each night (sometimes, with the moms). An everyman and dreamboat all in one. His humble “aw shucks” grin and Midwestern demeanor (read: good manners) are only bolstered, not betrayed, by the mischievous glint in his eye and rogue, often righteous, antics — those unapproachable good looks made affable by easily forgiven character flaws.

By the time “Fail Safe” came around, Clooney had already started converting his stardom from TV to film (an oft-perilous leap in late-’90s Hollywood). “From Dusk Til Dawn,” “Out of Sight,” and “Three Kings” proved he could pick good projects (after “Batman & Robin,” uh, did not), and Clooney was only a year or two away from leading beloved hit blockbusters like “The Perfect Storm” and “Ocean’s Eleven.” Making a TV movie could be seen as a step backward, even if returning to television after finding success in film would only endear him further to fans.

Clooney didn’t need to go back to TV for “Fail Safe.” He chose to go back to TV for “Fail Safe,” which raises the simple question, “Why?” Even in 2000, when TV movies were still a thing and movie stars on TV weren’t, “Fail Safe” was far from a money grab. Variety’s ratings report described the production as “anything but fail-safe,” and while the broadcast did well, it still finished second in Sunday night viewership to “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

Adapted from the same book that inspired Sidney Lumet’s 1964 film, the black-and-white feature was directed by Stephen Frears and starred Richard Dreyfuss, Noah Wyle, James Cromwell, Sam Elliott, Don Cheadle, Harvey Keitel, and Clooney (among others). Despite playing pilot Jack Grady, a relatively minor role (Variety’s review griped he spent “most of the movie behind an oxygen mask”) Clooney was the film’s driving force behind the scenes — just as he was when “E.R.” went live for its Season 4 premiere.

“The first time I saw ‘Fail-Safe’ was on TV when I was still in high school and I was just blown away,” Clooney told The New York Times. “I just loved the story and I thought the look of the film, in black-and-white and with no musical score, was just stunning. […] I’ve literally seen it a 100 times.”

Set during the height of the Cold War, the movie is a cautionary tale rooted in catastrophe brought about by chance, miscommunication, and distrust. When an unknown aircraft breaches American airspace, the military scrambles planes armed with nuclear bombs to wait near designated fail-safe points outside Russia. Although the original aircraft proves harmless, a technical error activates one of the bombing groups anyway, and the pilots head for Moscow, believing they’re under orders to destroy the Russian capital.

Amid its tragic dissection of a ruthless system built to grind out the last vestiges of humanity (before destroying humankind), “Fail Safe” illustrates how fear can breed disaster, whether it’s found in the rush to protect one country by destroying another, or in building world-ending weapons to begin with. If a glitch can bring about World War III, shouldn’t we limit the fallout of a single irreversible mistake? Shouldn’t we learn to trust each other? To listen to each other? To connect as intelligent, empathetic human beings, rather than rely on the technical prowess of faceless, unfeeling machines?

The original film was largely dismissed at the time, after arriving in the same year as Stanley Kubrick’s similarly-plotted and satirically-accessible “Dr. Strangelove,” and its political leaders belong to a bygone era. (Accepting the president’s moral character is key to the plot, and our sitting president has no moral character, so…) Still, “Fail Safe’s” message resonated with Clooney, and he wanted to share it with as wide an audience as possible. By 2000, any TV with Clooney was still considered must-see, and the live stage production offered an early opportunity for the future United Nations Messenger of Peace, Council of Foreign Relations member, and husband to an actual, real-life hero to blend his onscreen persona with his public passions. He wanted to tell this story. He wanted to lend his voice to this story.

You can see where this is going.

“Good Night, and Good Luck” Comes Full Circle

In the five years between the premieres of “Fail Safe” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” Clooney’s popular image faced political pushback. For speaking out against the war in Iraq, he was labeled a “traitor,” and the response prompted him to write “Good Night, and Good Luck” with Grant Heslov. Originally, they even conceived the drama as a live production for CBS. That was the home of Edward R. Murrow, their subject, and it was Clooney’s recent home for “Fail Safe” as well. Much of the story — about Murrow’s conflict with Senator Joseph McCarthy over his ongoing communist witch hunt — even played out on TV, via the anchor’s nightly newscasts.

It’s only in hindsight that the decision to make a feature film seems obvious. When it premiered at the 2005 Venice Film Festival, “Good Night, and Good Luck” was just Clooney’s second directorial feature. Its acclaim not only cemented the actor as a respected filmmaker — he earned three Oscar nominations that year: one for directing “Good Night, and Good Luck,” one for writing it, and the third, which he won, for his supporting turn in “Syriana” — but gave him the clout to open his Smokehouse Pictures, his own production house with Heslov.

But the acclaim didn’t just mean more commendations for Clooney; it meant more attention to the film’s message. “Good Night, and Good Luck” exemplifies the necessity of the fourth estate. It venerates Murrow not just as a man whose courage and convictions came together to protect a country intent on destroying itself, but also as a journalist — a pillar of the American system that the Constitution relies on to stand firm, particularly when the other columns are crumbling.

“Power kind of hates the fourth estate,” Clooney said recently. “They hate journalism. […] When the other three estates all fail you, you really need that fourth estate. It has to be the people that hold people to account.”

As much as “Good Night, and Good Luck” illustrates the necessity of journalism, it’s also a testament to the power of television and the people behind it. TV critic James Poniewozik said of the play, “In many ways, watching it is really like watching television.” For one, both the film and the play don’t use an actor to portray McCarthy; they rely on archival footage of the actual senator. That gives the impression, in the stage production, that Clooney’s Murrow is going toe to toe with the real-life McCarthy. His nightly news reports are even projected on a giant screen so the seated audience can better see the anchor’s face, much like they saw McCarthy’s on their TVs at home.

Providing a closer look at Clooney, too, should only benefit the broadcast version. If, as Clooney told Stephen Colbert, Murrow was the “most trusted man in America before Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America,” Clooney is an actor audiences trust in their homes and trust with a message. (Fun fact: Cronkite introduced the Clooney’s live version of “Fail Safe.”) He’s never been shy about speaking his mind, and performing “Good Night, and Good Luck” eight times a week for 12 weeks goes to show just how dedicated he is to amplifying its convictions. Bringing it to television is a homecoming, sure, but it’s also an extension of his desire to make an impact.

No one is expecting “Good Night, and Good Luck” to do for Max what “Hamilton” did for Disney+. As of Saturday morning, it’s unclear whether the play will even be available to stream after the initial broadcast. Still, between Clooney’s resilient stardom and “Good Night, and Good Luck’s” continued relevancy, the Broadway show’s popularity should come as no surprise. It offers a unique opportunity for Clooney to try something different (as he’s wont to do) while revitalizing a moral lesson for an era in desperate need of it. Yes, Clooney performed on stage before (39 years ago, he had a small role in “Vicious,” a musical about Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious), and yes, audiences had seen this story already (and can watch it again anytime they want via Blu-rays, streaming, or VOD), but marrying a new risk with a new format — as Clooney does again when he goes live on CNN — is more than enough to warrant our attention one more time. He learned that with “Fail Safe,” if not sooner.

In her Vulture review, theater critic Sara Holdren writes, “Clooney speaks not only of television and news media, but of theater, of all the informative, entertaining, and communicative arts: ‘These instruments can teach, they can illuminate; yes, and they can even inspire,’ he says. ‘But they can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use them to those ends. Otherwise, they are merely wires and lights in a box.'”

Behind the camera or in front, on Broadway or in our homes, he respects his audience enough to honor their unspoken agreement: When Clooney asks for the spotlight, he’s going to earn it.

“Good Night, and Good Luck” airs Saturday, June 7 at 7 p.m. ET on CNN. The live telecast will be available to stream on CNN.com and the CNN apps — with no cable or satellite login required — as well as for Max subscribers (across all plans).

Source: IndieWire.