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Ocean's Reunion! George Clooney to Direct Matt Damon in The Monuments Men

Damon confirms to E! News that he's signed on to his pal's latest directorial effort

By Natalie Finn Dec 05, 2012 3:31 AMTags
Matt Damon, George ClooneyCJ LaFrance/ZumaPress, Larry Busacca/WireImage

George Clooney has a new man for The Monuments Men.

"Yes, I will be in that movie!" Matt Damon exclusively confirmed to E! News on the red carpet at the New York premiere of Promised Land.

Damon had been in talks to join the already pretty impressive cast of Clooney's latest directorial effort—a period drama that sounds like it's about Mt. Rushmore but is actually set in Germany toward the end of World War II, when Hitler's regime was trying to cover its genocidal tracks. The film focuses on a group of historians and museum curators who are trying to recover great works of art that had been stolen or were in danger of being destroyed by the Nazis.

Clooney will direct an ensemble that, in addition to himself and Damon, includes Daniel Craig, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin (the Frenchman who edged out Clooney for the Oscar this year!), John Goodman, Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville and Bob Balaban.

Damon, meanwhile, costars with John Krasinski in the Gus Van Sant-directed Promised Land, a match made via Krasinki's wife, Emily Blunt, who costarred with Damon in The Adjustment Bureau and brought the guys together.

Krasinski told E! tonight that the idea for Promised Land, which he and Damon also wrote, came about after "many double dates." Aw.

Here's hoping Clooney doesn't get too jealous!