The "Monuments Men" is holding to be the most expensive film helmed by George Clooney to date but its Hollywood A-listers cast have worked cheap for the award winning actor.

"Monuments Men" is a WWII film about a ragtag group of individuals to recover precious artworks stolen by the Nazis,

"I guess it is probably double the budget of any film I have ever worked on, and certainly in scope and size it is a lot bigger," George Clooney, who was nominated for best director at the Academy for "Good Night, and Good Luck," said in a report byReuters.

According to the report, the movie's budget reached $70 million that was shared by both 21^st Century Fox and Sony Corp. The movie is also expected to rake in $24 million during the first weekend in North American sales.

George Clooney said the film was a big balancing act by dishing equal portions of World War II history lesson, art heist and formulaic buddy story.

The actor explained to Reuters: "You don't want it to be a civics lesson. You want it to be entertaining, you want people to enjoy themselves, laugh at some of the stuff. But it is also a very serious subject matter."

Aside from George Clooney, who plays Frank Stokes, the film also stars Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin, and Hugh Bonneville.

The actor-director told Variety that he managed to get A-listers on board the film only because they agreed to work cheap, adding that they were only paid about 10-15% of their original asking price.

"If you pay everybody a full boatload, it's a $150 million film. You just can't do it. Everybody worked for super cheap, like crazy cheap," he said, adding that they incorporated a portion of the profits as incentive if the film does well at the box-office.

The film was loosely based on a true story about real-life experts and curators who volunteered to recover the Nazi loot. MailOnline said the film only focused on the Americans when in real life there were 345 men and women who comprised the group.