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.

Check out the latest casting announcements below:

• Jared Harris (Mad Men) will join Pompeii, the 3D action-adventure picture from Paul W.S. Anderson that stars Kit Harington and Emily Browning.
• Dimitri Leonidas (Animals) is the latest addition to writer/director George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, which stars Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Jean Dujardin.
• Leslie Mann (This Is 40) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Mama) are in negotiations to join the Fox comedy The Other Woman, starring Cameron Diaz.

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

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.

The latest release date information for the following films:

• Before there was Django Unchained, there was Django, Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Western starring Franco Nero in the title role. Rialto will re-release Django starting December 21st.
• The George Clooney-directed The Monuments Men, starring Clooney alongside Daniel Craig, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett, opens December 20, 2013.
• Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut, Quartet, starring Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and Billy Connolly, moves from December 28th to January 11, 2013.

Sony Classics has also announced new release dates for:

• Love Is All You Need, starring Pierce Brosnan, opening May 3, 2013.
• At Any Price, with Zac Efron and Dennis Quaid, opening April 26, 2013.
• The Company You Keep, a Robert Redford film starring Redford himself alongside Shia LaBeouf, opens April 5, 2013.
• No, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, will open February 15, 2013.
• The Gatekeepers, a documentary directed by Dror Moreh, opens February 1, 2013.

Hit the jump for synopses and images from each picture.

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.

With Rise of the Guardians opening this week, I recently got to see the finished film and it’s really well done.  Not only is the animation great to look at, it’s got a strong story that’s character driven and it doesn’t rely on stupid jokes.  In addition, unlike most superhero films that spend half the time introducing characters by explaining their origin and showing off their powers, what’s fantastic about Rise of the Guardians is that we join almost everyone in the middle of the story.  If you’re not familiar with the story, it  revolves around the rebellious Jack Frost (Chris Pine) teaming up with other mythical figures North aka Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), E. Aster Bunnyman aka Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), Tooth aka The Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Sandman to battle the evil Pitch (Jude Law).  Here’s my video blog review and all our previous coverage.

To help promote the film, last week I got on the phone with composer Alexandre Desplat.  We talked about how he got involved in Rise of the Guardians, his extremely busy year, his collaboration with the director on animated movies versus live-action features, and more.  In addition, we also talked about some of his other projects like Ben Affleck‘s Argo, Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty, George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, other possible future projects, and a lot more.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

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.