UK pips Ireland for Clooney's war movie

by Nicky80 Mon 17 Feb 2014, 07:06

UK pips Ireland for Clooney's war movie

NICK WEBB – 16 FEBRUARY 2014
Movie star George Clooney considered shooting the $70m war drama TheMonuments Men in Ireland, according to his fellow producer, Oscar winnerGrant Heslov.

"We looked at everything. For us we needed some specific locations that we found in the UK. I think for us, I don't think we'd compromise a film or the look of a film like this if we couldn't get the right location, especially a film like this where the look is so important," he told the Sunday Independent. But more suitable UK locations meant that Ireland lost the film, which starsClooney with Cate Blanchett and Matt Damon.
"It wasn't that close as everything in the UK was just right for us. The Normandy beach was just right."
Stephen Spielberg shot part of his Saving Private Ryan movie in Wexford, where Curracloe Beach doubled as the Normandy beaches. "We didn't want to use the same beach," Herslov added.
How tinsel town puts the money on screen
Hollywood superstar George Clooney is two doors down the corridor at Claridges hotel in London's Mayfair.
The hotel, once owned by Irish investors, is so magnificently opulent that there's a sofa in the manned lift, in case the super-rich need to sit down. Old school.
Sony Pictures has pretty much taken over the entire floor to publicise Clooney's new movie, the $70m Second World War flick The Monuments Men, which opened in Ireland last Friday. It's a ripping yarn about a team of art experts sent to war to try to locate art treasures looted by the Nazis.
Grant Heslov is sitting on a sofa by the window when I'm shown in to meet him. He's the Oscar-winning maker of the uber-slick Iranian hostage drama Argo – bagging the gong with co-producers Ben Affleck and George Clooney in 2012.
But the 50-year-old Californian is also an actor, having appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner True Lies, The Scorpion King and the Leonardo Di Caprio hit Catch Me If You Can. If you look closely at The Monuments Men, he's there too.
The Monuments Men has a cast to die for, with Clooney joined by Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville and Jean Dujardin. That's a lot of expensive talent.

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