Never one to sit around dating supermodels or making coffee adverts for too long when he could be writing, directing and starring in movies, George Clooney has revealed the details on his next passion project, The Monuments Men.
Clooney has co-written the script with regular producing partner Grant Heslov, and the pair worked from Robert M Edsel’s book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. It follows a group of art experts hand-picked by the US government to retrieve works stolen by the Nazis during World War II.
While Clooney has typically specialised in smaller dramas such as Good Night, And Good Luck and The Ides Of March, this sees him taking a leaf out of old chum Steven Soderbergh’s book, which should mean something that’s more action drama, less Antiques Roadshow.
“I’m excited about it,” Clooney told The Wrap at the Palm Springs Film Festival on Saturday. “It’s a fun move because it could be big entertainment. It’s a big budget, you can’t do it small – it’s landing in Normandy.”
So why the switch from more intimate fare? “I’m not opposed to doing a commercial film, I’m just opposed to doing a commercial film that doesn’t feel organic to me. So if we’re going to do a commercial film we thought, 'Let’s do something that seems fun and actually have something to say.'”
There’s no word on who will act alongside herr director yet, but the movie is already being developed at Sony. Clooney will grace UK screens in Alexander Payne's The Descendants on January 27 and then appears in Alfonso Cuaron's sci-fi drama Gravity.