Clooney to write, produce, direct and star in tale of stolen Nazi art.
TheWrap reports that George Clooney has begun work on his next project, an adaptation of Robert M. Edsel’s book ‘Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.’
Clooney is writing the script with long time writing and producing partner Grant Heslov (‘Ides of March,’ ‘Good Night and Good Luck’), and plans to direct and star. The story tells of a hand-picked group of art experts chosen by the U.S. government to retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis.
“I’m excited about it,” Clooney told TheWrap at the Palm Springs Film Festival on Saturday. “It’s a fun movie because it could be big entertainment. It’s a big budget, you can’t do it small — it’s landing in Normandy.”
The full synopsis for Edsel’s book, courtesy of Amazon:
“At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: “degenerate” works he despised. In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Momuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture. Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world’s great art from the Nazis.”