Given US cinemagoers' lack of appetite for movies about Iraq, you might think that the latest George Clooney project has little going for it.

From Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs (from Tom Cruise's UA studio) through Brian De Palma's Redacted and Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss, the Iraq war has not exactly set the US box office alight.

However, throw a little X-Files style weirdness into the mix, particularly when it's based on a supposedly real-life US government programme to turn American soldiers into exponents of psychic warfare, and you might have something interesting on your hands.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Clooney is lining up an all-star cast which includes Kevin Spacey, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges for his big screen adaptation of The Men Who Stare at Goats, a non-fiction book by Guardian columnist Jon Ronson about the US army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal.

Clooney will play Lyn Cassady, who claims to be a former member of the unit who was reactivated in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, with McGregor as a desperate reporter who stumbles on the story of a lifetime. Bridges is set to play the founder of the programme, with Spacey playing a former soldier who is now running a prison camp in Iraq.

Ronson wrote The Men Who Stare at Goats to accompany his Channel 4 TV series Crazy Rulers of the World in 2004. The title refers to the attempts by members of the unit to kill goats just by looking at them. Production on the film version is due to start in October.