Date: 17th December 2010

Clooney joins Bullock in 'Gravity'


George Clooney has joined Sandra Bullock in the cast of Alfonso Cuaron's science fiction drama Gravity, reports Deadline.

The project revolves around a female astronaut (Sandra Bullock) trying to make it to Earth after a disaster in space. Clooney will play her colleague.

Clooney will replace Robert Downey Jr. as the leader of a space station that gets decimated by debris from an exploded asteroid. Clooney and Bullock's characters are the sole survivors of the mission and must find a way to return home.

The initial pairing for the Alfonso Cuaron-directed project was to have been Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey Jr. Then came a protracted series of reversals that saw Jolie leave and come back, while actresses Marion Cotillard, Scarlett Johansson, Blake Lively and Natalie Portman were involved with the movie to varying degrees, all within the last eight months.

Downey stuck with the project throughout the various casting changes but in mid-November, just as things looked set with Bullock, he bailed.

Gravity will begin production next April or May after Bullock has completed Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close and Clooney finds time away from his next directorial effort The Ides Of March.

Source: Press Release