A black comedy set in 1967 and centered on on Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his inept brother (Richard Kind) won't move out of the house.

A Serious Man will focus on Larry Gopnik, a Jewish college professor in the Midwest in 1967. Larry starts to question the value of life when he discovers his wife wants a divorce (and may be having a romantic affair with one of their neighbors). He also has trouble with his children stealing money out of his wallet (his son is buying marijuana, while his daughter is saving for plastic surgery) and his deadbeat brother, who has moved in because he neither has the cash nor the maturity to live on his own. Add to that the hostile anonymous notes he keeps receiving which threaten his tenure at school, the grad student who will get a passing grade from Larry by any means necessary (who may or may not be the person leaving the threatening letters) and the attractive neighbor who bedevils Larry with nude sunbathing, and there is little wonder why Larry seeks to solve his existential issues from men of God whom he hopes will help him to become an austere and devoted man.

Next up for Clooney is another film with the Coens, Hail Caesar, about a bunch of actors in the 1920s putting on a play about ancient Rome, with Clooney running around in a toga and a pencil mustache, thus completing what he calls his "idiot trilogy" with the filmmakers.

Adam Arkin has joined "A Serious Man," the film that Joel and Ethan Coen are shooting in Minnesota for Focus Features and Working Title Films.

Arkin, who's a series regular on NBC's "Life," joins Michael Stuhlbarg and Richard Kind, who play brothers in the black comedy, which takes place in 1967.