Based upon Robert M. Edsel's book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, the film has been co-written by Clooney fellow Argo producer Grant Heslov, and also features Matt Damon (Elysium), Cate Blanchett (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug), John Goodman (Argo), Bill Murray (Lost in Translation), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey) and Bob Balaban (Moonrise Kingdom). Take a look at the first trailer after the official synopsis...
"Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action-thriller focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys – seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 – possibly hope to succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements."
The Monuments Men is set for a North American release on December 18th and is due to open here in the UK on January 9th, 2014.