Predecessors
In February 1996, ER star George Clooney founded his first production company, a television company called Mirador Entertainment, which signed a deal with NBC Studios to develop television programming. Deborah Leoni joined in as partner in July of that year.
In November 1996, George Clooney founded another company to supplement the television-based Mirador, Left Bank Productions with partner Robert Lawrence, and the company signed a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. In 1997, Left Bank Productions changed its name to Maysville Pictures (named after Clooney's hometown in Maysville, Kentucky) to avoid confusion with a music-based management firm with the Left Bank name.
In 1998, the Mirador deal was supplanted by a new television deal at Warner Bros. Television and CBS with the Maysville Pictures name, was headed by Clooney as well as Pam Williams and Ben Cosgrove. In 1999, Robert Lawrence and George Clooney broke their partnership, with Clooney continuing to run Maysville on its own. Only two works were released under the Maysville Pictures name, the television movie Fail Safe, and the 2001 film Rock Star.
When Section Eight was first formed, the company signed a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures, and took the exiting Maysville staff with them, including Ben Cosgrove, who was with Maysville before Section Eight was formed.
Section Eight
The company was founded in 1999 after George Clooney met Steven Soderberg and secured a deal at Warner Bros. Pictures. Although Section Eight remained in the old Maysville offices, Soderbergh worked from New York City.
It produced the critical hits Far from Heaven, Insomnia, Syriana, A Scanner Darkly and Michael Clayton, as well as Clooney-directed films Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night, and Good Luck. In 2005, Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck picked up eight Oscars nominations between them.
In 2003, the company set up a television division, led by Grant Heslov. The company's two television productions is the show, K Street which aired on HBO in 2003, and Unscripted, which also aired on HBO in 2005.
With Soderbergh citing a desire to focus on directing through Extension 765, and Clooney forming production company Smokehouse Pictures with Grant Heslov (who worked at Section Eight for just five years) in the same building, but under a new name where Maysville and Section Eight were, the two decided to shut down Section Eight at the end of 2006.
