[Movies] George Clooney's The Monuments Men Begins Filming
Posted by Joseph Lee on 03.05.2013
In Germany...
Coming Soon reports that Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox's The Monuments Men has begun filming in Berlin, Germany. The film is a Smokehouse production directed by, starring and written by George Clooney. Grant Heslov also wrote the film, which is based on the book by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Clooney and Heslov will produce through Smokehouse.
This is their first production since Argo, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Barbara A. Hall is executive producer. It's a co-production with Germany's Siebente Babelsberg Film GmbH, a subsidiary of Studio Babelsberg AG. Charlie Woebcken, Christoph Fisser and Henning Molfenter serve as co-producers. Sony Pictures will release the film domestically, with Twentieth Century Fox handling international territories.
The film also stars Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and John Goodman.
Here's a synopsis: 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.
It will continue filming in the UK and Germany through the end of June and will be released on December 18, 2013.
