The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has already announced their dates for the 86th and 87th Oscars, and if you want to play long-term prognosticator, you should keep an eye on George Clooney‘s The Monuments Men for 2013 nominees.  The Columbia Pictures/20th Century Fox co-production tells the true story of an unlikely World War II platoon made up of museum directors, curators, and art historians tasked by FDR with going into Germany and rescuing artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves before they are lost forever.  In addition to producing and co-writing the script, Clooney stars alongside an outstanding cast that includes Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, John Goodman, and Hugh Bonneville.  The first set photos have leaked online, and they show Damon in uniform, and Clooney rocking a mustache.  This should go over well with pro-mustache members of the Academy.

Hit the jump to check out the set photos.  The Monuments Men is due out December 18th.

Production has commenced on George Clooney’s fifth feature directorial effort, the action-thriller The Monuments Men.  The Columbia Pictures/20th Century Fox co-production tells the true story of an unlikely World War II platoon made up of museum directors, curators, and art historians tasked by FDR with going into Germany and rescuing artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves before they are lost forever.  Clooney directs, stars in, and produces the film alongside his Smokehouse Productions partner Grant Heslov, with whom he also co-wrote the script.  Moreover, Clooney has assembled a truly remarkable cast that includes Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, John Goodman, and Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey).

Unfortunately Daniel Craig is not listed as part of the cast in the official press release, so it appears that he may have dropped out of the film.  Hit the jump for more, including the full press release.

Only two days into 2013 and we’ve already got our first release date shuffle.  Check out the changes for the following films:

• Carrie, the horror remake directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore, will now open on a more thematically appropriate October 18, 2013.
• No Good Deed, a thriller starring Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson, will move back to January 17, 2014.
• George Clooney’s Monuments Men, which sports the crazy cast of Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and Clooney himself, will open just a couple of days earlier on December 18, 2013.
• The Call, previously known as The Hive, is a thriller from director Brad Anderson that stars Halle Berry and will open on March 15, 2013.

Hit the jump for posters and synopses of the above-mentioned films.

Opening this weekend in limited release is director Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land.  The film stars Matt Damon and Frances McDormand as natural gas salesmen who try to prey on an economic town in decline only to have their mission complicated by the citizens they encounter and an environmentalist played by John Krasinski.  Damon and Krasinski wrote the screenplay, and the film deals heavily with the consequences of fracking.  The film also stars Rosemarie DeWitt, Hal Holbrook, Scoot McNairy, and Titus Welliver.  For more on Promised Land, here are seven clips and the trailer.

During the recent Los Angeles press day I got to speak with Damon.  He talked about what surprised him when researching fracking, how the issue is very divisive, how lucky he’s been as an actor, and more.  Damon also spoke about his reaction to seeing a rough cut of Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, confirms he’s doing George Clooney’s Monuments Men, and says he was happy to work with Terry Gilliam again on The Zero Theorem, but he only has a very small part.  Hit the jump to watch.

George Clooney seems committed to putting together one of the most impressive casts in recent memory with his upcoming directorial effort The Monuments Men.  The period drama centers on a group of art experts selected by the U.S. Government to chase down the stolen art of Europe during World War II, and Clooney is already set to star alongside Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville, and Bob Balaban.  Now Deadline reports that friend and frequent collaborator Matt Damon is negotiating to join the cast.

Clooney co-wrote the film with Grant Heslov and will also star and direct.  The premise sounds a bit like Clooney is mounting his own period version of Ocean’s Eleven, and with a cast this spectacular it looks to be one hell of a movie.  Hit the jump to read the synopsis for the novel The Monuments Men.

George Clooney has lined up an incredible cast for his next film, Monuments Men.  As we previously reported, the story centers on a group of art experts selected by the U.S. Government to chase down the stolen art of Europe during World War II.  Aside from the terrific premise, Clooney, who co-wrote the film with partner Grant Heslov, will star alongside a cast that includes Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray, and Cate Blanchett.  Dujardin, Murray, and Blanchett had previously been mentioned in connection with the film, and Craig is a strong addition along with other new cast members John Goodman, Bob Balaban, and Downton Abbey‘s Hugh Bonneville.

Hit the jump for more.

Three of Tinsel Town’s brightest stars are about to secure the dough to make their next motion pictures*:

• Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox will team up to finance and distribute George Clooney‘s WWII-era art heist drama Monuments Men.
• Paramount Pictures closed a deal to acquire the T.S. Nowlin script Our Name Is Adam, with Tom Cruise attached to star as an astronaut who travels back in time and works with his younger self.
• Paramount is also eying Adam Sandler’s next comedy, an untitled project that Sandler will shoot after Grown Ups 2. [Update: Hit the jump for the title and info on Sandler's upcoming comedy.]

More on each project—including some surprise Bill Murray goodness—after the jump.

As George Clooney ramps up pre-production on his next directorial effort, the WWII drama The Monuments Men, he’s starting to focus on casting the film.  Based on the book of the same name by Robert M. Edsel, the story centers on a group of art experts selected by the US Government to chase down the stolen art of Europe during World War II.  Clooney is producing, writing, directing, and starring in the film, and The Artist star (and Best Actor winner) Jean Dujardin is now being eyed for a supporting role in the pic.  Hit the jump for more.

George Clooney has kicked off work on a new project, a big-budget affair set in Europe during World War II. Clooney will be writing, directing and starring in the movie, entitled Monuments Men, which will follow a group of art experts selected by the US Government to locate and retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis. The film will be based on the Robert M. Edsel book “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History”. Hit the jump for Clooney’s comments, as well as the full synopsis of the book.