George Clooney has chosen his next project! According to Clooney, he has teamed up with his producing partner Grant Heslov to co-write, direct, and star in The Monuments Men, based off the true story of a hand-picked group of American art experts tasked to collect valuable art stolen by the Nazi’s during WWII. More information after the jump.

Speaking to TheWrap at the Palm Springs Film Festival, Clooney had this to say:

“I’m excited about it,” Clooney told TheWrap at the Palm Springs Film Festival on Saturday. “It’s a fun movie because it could be big entertainment. It’s a big budget, you can’t do it small — it’s landing in Normandy.”

The movie will be based on the book “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History,” by Robert M. Edsel.

It is unclear how close to the source material the film will stay, but the book takes place over an 11-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, from 1944-1945.

Speaking about the “big-budget” nature of the project, Clooney added:

“I’m not opposed to doing a commercial film, I’m just opposed to doing a commercial film that doesn’t feel organic to me. So if we’re going to do a commercial film we thought, ‘Let’s do something that seems fun and actually have something to say.’”

Clooney has previously directed such political and espionage related films as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck, and most recently The Ides of March. The project has been set up with Sony, for an unspecified target release date. Are you interested in this film? Does The Monuments Men sound like a suitable next project for Clooney?