Clooney Too Good-Looking

George Clooney has turned down the chance to play the lead role in a film adaptation of Nick Hornby's About A Boy apparently because he believed his leading man looks were such that they would prevent him doing a creditable job. 'George Clooney read the book,' Nick Hornby told cinemagoers at a Q&A session at London's Screen on the Green cinema, 'and said nobody would believe he would need to join a single parents group. You would need someone more average looking.' The novel, whose lead character is a man who joins a single parents group to meet a woman, would be Hornby's third book to be adapted for the big screen. High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, was released this year and Hornby's debut novel Fever Pitch was made in 1997 starring Colin Firth. The success of High Fidelity, which has brought in $27 million in box office in the US may be the reason that filmmakers are looking to remake Fever Pitch with a bigger budget. 'Someone has tried to develop Fever Pitch into being about the Boston Red Sox,' says Hornby. 'They are the great doomed team of the World Series.'