Way back in 2009, probably before most of you were born, there was a film called Shutter Island starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese. It was being looked at as a potential Oscar vehicle, but only a couple months before its expected October 2009 release, it was bumped to February 19. It would ultimately go on to be nominated for zero Oscars, but at the same time it became Scorsese’s second highest grossing film ever, second only to The Departed, which did pretty well at the Oscars.
I mention this only because we have a similar scenario playing out this year as Sony bumped George Clooney‘s The Monuments Men as it wasn’t quite ready in terms of finishing touches such as score and visual effects, from a December release date now to a confirmed February 7, 2014 release.
The move positions the film opposite Warner’s The Lego Movie while Sony decided to move the bomb-waiting-to-happen remake of RoboCop from the same date and release it five days later on February 12.
The film is directed by Clooney who also co-wrote the film with Grant Heslov and will star in the feature alongside Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and John Goodman.
[amz asin=”1599951509″ size=”small”]Based on a true story and adapted from Robert M. Edsel’s novel, “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and 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.
I’ve included the trailer directly below.
