George Clooney's MONUMENTS MEN Gets New February Release Date

Earlier this week, BWW reported that George Clooney's THE MONUMENTS MEN, originally set to be released on December 18, had been pushed back to an unspecified date in 2014. Today, Deadline reports that the film is now set to hit theaters on February 7, 2014.

The actor told the site exclusively, "The straight-up facts are these. We had a really good test last week, scoring in the mid 80s, in Arizona. And when we were on the plane coming back with Jeff Blake, Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton, they said look, let's be honest. There are lots better times to bring this movie out than December 18. How about November 22? Can you do it? Now, today is our first day at the scoring stages at Abbey Road. Then they call and ask, how about the 15th of November? We like to pull stuff off, and we said, let's see what we can do. That was two days ago."

However he added, "We had a meeting with all the effects guys for our CGI stuff, and, we're just not going to get there in time. Then we looked at the date we had, December 18. I don't know how many movies are opening, but it's got to be the toughest December in recent memory for box office. We said, where's another good place to land? And we looked at February and the Shutter Island slot."

Moving the release date to 2014 makes the film ineligible for the upcoming Academy Awards. But Clooney insists that winning awards was not his focus. The film is an adaptation of Robert Edsel's nonfiction book "The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History."

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