As promised yesterday with the debut of our first batch of stills, the debut trailer has landed for George Clooney‘s WWII drama The Monuments Men. For his follow-up to The Ides of March, he brings together one of the finest casts of the year, including Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin and Hugh Bonneville.
Speaking to USA Today, Clooney said, “Grant [Heslov] and I were looking to do a film that was less cynical than a lot of the films we do. Grant had read the book at the airport. He gave it to me. We went into Sony and pitched it and got greenlit right there. The story was just so compelling.” This first trailer, which takes a surprisingly light, entertaining tone for a WWII-set drama, can be seen below. If you’d like to read Robert M. Edsel‘s book it’s based on, pick it up here and watch the documentary Rape of Europa, based on the same events, on Netflix Instant.
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 opens on December 18th, 2013.