It appears that George Clooney is zeroing in on his next directorial project. Per Deadline, the filmmaker is in early talks to direct a sci-fi thriller called Echo for 20th Century Fox and Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment. The original script by Christopher MacBride centers on a drone specialist who has a psychological crisis when he begins to suspect his lover is not who she appears to be: is he just paranoid, or has she been replaced?

The premise sounds very Westworld-y, and would mark a curious choice of material for Clooney as a director. The Oscar-winning performer made his directorial debut with the dark comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and followed that up with a string of adult-oriented films: the political drama Good Night, and Good Luck., the screwball comedy Leatherheads, another political drama in The Ides of March, and the tame, old-fashioned war film The Monuments Men. Last year Clooney took a stab at an old Coen Brothers script with Suburbicon, attempting to recover from the disappointment of Monuments Men, but the Matt Damon-fronted dark comedy wasn’t too well received.

I stil think Clooney’s a good filmmaker though, and I’ll be first in line to see whatever he puts together. Currently, Clooney is directing the Hulu miniseries adaptation of Catch-22. He initially intended to star in the Joseph Heller adaptation, but subsequently replaced himself with Kyle Chandler.

It’s unclear if Clooney would also star in Echo, but it’s a curious choice of material regardless and I’m mighty curious to see what he does with it. It may be some time before this actually comes together, and since Clooney’s in early talks the deal could fall apart. But right now this is an intriguing possibility.

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