Clooney signs up to Stare At Goats

Hollywood A-lister George Clooney is to lead the cast of The Men Who Stare At Goats, the adaptation of British journalist Jon Ronson's book about a US Army unit set up to investigate the use of paranormal powers.

According to trade newspaper Variety, says the star of Ocean's Eleven, Good Night, And Good Luck and Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind will work from a script by British scribe Peter Straughan, who recently adapted Toby Young's book How To Lose Friends And Alienate People for its forthcoming big screen appearance.

The Men Who Stare At Goats tells the story of the US First Earth Battalion, who investigated the military applications of various forms of New Age thinking and spooky hocus-pocus.

It takes its title from a belief that it is possible to kill a goat by, well, staring at it. Ronson said the book was an attempt to examine "the apparent madness at the heart of US military intelligence".

Clooney has recently wrapped on Coen brothers' spy project Burn After Reading and is set to lend his dulcet tones to Wes Anderson's animated version of much-loved Roald Dahl classic The Fantastic Mr Fox.

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