When the second trailer for George Clooney’s anticipated The Monuments Men landed last month, the film was still poised to be a big contender in the upcoming Oscar race.
A lot has changed in the past few weeks, however, with Clooney and Sony opting to push the film’s release date out of Academy eligibility, and into February next year. And whilst it doesn’t reveal much more than the original domestic poster across the Atlantic, Fox – the film’s UK distributor – have launched the new UK Quad, which gives a little more visibility to Cate Blanchett and her rather stunning blue dress.
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men focuses 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.
Clooney of course top-lines a very impressive ensemble, starring alongside Matt Damon, John Goodman, Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray, Hugh Bonneville, and Bob Balaban.
Long-time collaborator Grant Heslov (The Ides of March, Good Night, and Good Luck.) co-wrote the script once more with Clooney, with the two adapting the original book by Robert M. Edsel, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.
The Monuments Men will be released in the US on February 7th, 2014, with its UK release date now set for two weeks later on 21st February.
