George Clooney and his platoon are back and they're ready to save some of the world's greatest art from being obliterated by the Nazis. Sony Pictures has released a brand new trailer for The Monuments Men, and watching the preview you'll realize that this may be a very different movie than we were initially led to believe.
Based on a true story and adapted into a screenplay by Clooney and Grant Heslov, The Monuments Men follows a special platoon serving in World War II with one very specific mission: to help find and rescue artistic masterpieces of all varieties before that Nazi thieves that stole them can destroy them. While the unit had little to no combat experience, consisting of seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, the drive to protect some of the world's most important cultural artifacts gave them the courage to cross into enemy lines and perform the job they were tasked by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In addition to Clooney, the film features an all-star cast that also includes Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and John Goodman.
While this trailer once again makes The Monuments Men appear to be a film worth being excited for, filled to the brim with an excellent cast and featuring an interesting story, what's truly fascinating is how much different this preview is tonally from the last one. The movie's first spot, which came out back in early August, painted the movie as a funny, World War II-set adventure story with occasional bits of drama, but this new one makes it look like a strict, important drama with the occasional humorous line. Perhaps having serious movies like Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave, Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips and Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity dominating the Oscar conversation this year has made Columbia Pictures rethink how they want to market the movie (the new trailer for David O. Russell's American Hustle that came out earlier this week was also much more serious than its predecessor...) For comparison purposes you can watch the first trailer for The Monuments Men below.
The film marks Clooney's fifth time stepping behind the camera to direct, which is almost starting to happen just as often as he chooses a project to star in (between 2011 and today he's only acted in three movies). This also marks the third time that he has been credited as a writer, having also previously written both Good Night and Good Luck and The Ides of March with Heslov. The new film will be in theaters on December 18th.
