HBO Developing Third WWII Miniseries with Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg - Polidicks

[quote][B]The follow-up to "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" will be based on Donald Miller's "Masters of the Air." HBO confirmed Friday that it is developing a third World War II miniseries from [B]Tom Hanks[/B] and [B]Steven Spielberg[/B]. Joining an oeuvre that already includes 2001's[I]Band of Brothers[/I] and 2010's [I]The Pacific[/I], the untitled miniseries will explore the aerial wars through the eyes of enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force -- known as the men of the Mighty Eighth. The project will use at its source material historian[B] Donald L. Miller[/B]’s nonfiction tome [I]Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany[/I].[/B] Spielberg, Hanks and [B]Gary Goetzman[/B] again will serve as executive producers via Hanks and Goetzman’s Playtone and Spielberg’s Amblin Television. HBO executives have been in discussions about a third World War II miniseries for several months. [I]Justified[/I] creator [B]Graham Yost[/B], who wrote several episodes of [I]Brothers[/I] and [I]Pacific[/I], recently told [URL="http://thr.com/"][I]The Hollywood Reporter [/I][/URL]that he was [URL="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/graham-yost-eager-team-spielberg-410346"]eager[/URL] to reteam with Hanks and Spielberg on another WWII epic. And now that the source material has been optioned, the project can move into development. Additional source material might be added later. [I]Band of Brothers[/I], an 11-hour epic that ran over 10 parts in 2001, was based on the best-seller by historian [B]Stephen E. Ambrose[/B], who died in 2002. It followed Easy Company, part of the Army's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, through their mission in Europe from Operation Overlord in 1944 through V-J Day a year later. The miniseries featured [B]Damian Lewis[/B]; the British actor was then mostly unknown to American audiences but would go on to a slew of awards and accolades in Showtime’s[I]Homeland[/I]. The premiere of [I]Band of Brothers[/I], just days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, drew 10 million viewers (though ratings measurements at that time are less accurate than they are today). [I]The Pacific[/I], based primarily on the memoirs [I]Helmet for My Pillow [/I]by [B]Robert Leckie[/B] and[I]With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa [/I]by [B]Eugene Sledge[/B], followed men in three regiments of the 1st Marine Division as they battled the Japanese in the Pacific from 1942-45. The first of its 10 parts pulled in 3.1 million viewers for its premiere in March 2010, during a much more cluttered entertainment landscape. The miniseries are a significant financial commitment for HBO requiring the construction of large-scale sets, significant special effects and pyrotechnics and, because of the nature of the stories, big ensemble casts. [I]Brothers[/I] cost $125 million to produce, and [I]The Pacific[/I]was budgeted at $200 million; millions more were spent on promotion for both series. But [I]Band of Brothers[/I] and [I]The Pacific[/I] are among HBO’s prestige projects, and both cleaned up during awards season. [I]Brothers[/I] was nominated for 19 Emmys and won six, including outstanding miniseries; it also won Golden Globes and was awarded a Peabody. [I]The Pacific[/I]took home eight Emmys in 2010, more than any other program. [B][I]Email: [EMAIL="Marisa.Guthrie@thr.com"]Marisa.Guthrie@thr.com[/EMAIL]; Twitter: @MarisaGuthrie[/I][/B] [/quote] [URL="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-developing-third-wwii-miniseries-413632"]Hollywood Reporter[/URL]

Oh. My. God. [b]YES!!![/b]

I am already looking forward to this.

Band of Brothers is amazing. The Pacific was decent but no where near as good as its predecessor. Hopefully this one will be more on par with Band of Brothers.

Wish they would do another season of Generation Kill :(

I honestly expected something about the eastern front, that would have been so god damn awesome, or if anything, something like BoB, I'm missing muddy Normandy. But hey, that's Spielberg, I don't like that much planes, but if anyone can change my mind, it's him. Hell I bet I'll want to grow fucking wings when I'm done watching this shit.

[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;39296442]Band of Brothers is amazing. The Pacific was decent but no where near as good as its predecessor. Hopefully this one will be more on par with Band of Brothers.[/QUOTE] I don't think it'll be as good as BoB but I can see it on par with The Pacific. With airplanes, I can see a lot of repetitiveness in it as it's essentially "fly over here, drop bombs, return home and try not to get shot down along the way" where as Band of Brothers and The Pacific moved from place to place with a lot of changes in geography, thus making each mission and encounter with the enemy unique. The geography of the sky is the same everywhere.

About the book... [quote]Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes readers on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller's Air Force band, which toured U.S. air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. In 1943, an American bomber crewman stood only a one-in-five chance of surviving his tour of duty, twenty-five missions. The Eighth Air Force lost more men in the war than the U.S. Marine Corps. The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America -- white America, anyway. (African-Americans could not serve in the Eighth Air Force except in a support capacity.) The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the "King of Hollywood," Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men. The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland. Strategic bombing did not win the war, but the war could not have been won without it. American airpower destroyed the rail facilities and oil refineries that supplied the German war machine. The bombing campaign was a shared enterprise: the British flew under the cover of night while American bombers attacked by day, a technique that British commanders thought was suicidal. Masters of the Air is a story, as well, of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed. Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world's first and only bomber war.[/quote] Wow...

[quote]and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war.[/quote] Oh, that'll be interesting to see.

Oh fuck yes. Loved BoB and The Pacific. Though, it'd be interesting if they did a miniseries from the other side of the war.

I'd like to see a Band of brothers like series on Korea or Vietnam. I remember Tour of Duty used to be on the television years ago it was a really great series on the Vietnam war.

I thought the pacific was shit compared to Band of Brothers. Hopefully there's much stronger character connection, that's what put the pacific off for me.

The Pacific took a second viewing for me to really appreciate it, personally.

This is awesome, can't wait. Wish tho they did something about the African theatre and Iltalian front. Would be interesting. Or just looking at world war 2 through the eyes of a German soldier. So many possibilities...

Needs more Band of Brothers from the German viewpoint or hell, something about the Afrika Korps

[QUOTE=Mabus;39296591]I'd like to see a Band of brothers like series on Korea or Vietnam. I remember Tour of Duty used to be on the television years ago it was a really great series on the Vietnam war.[/QUOTE] I think they do it for WWII because for one, it was "the greatest" conflict in human history so far, and the least controversial over who was the "good guys" and who was the "bad guys" so to speak. Vietnam, and to a lesser degree but still a bit, Korea, has a lot of political controversy that may be difficult to steer clear from. Not necessarily from the show itself, but from the viewers saying, "No! That was wrong!" or "Yes! We should have gone further!" For example, the many war crimes and massacres that happened during Vietnam by the US. A great deal of the public don't know about them and the rest probably do their best to forget them. But they would be necessary to make a Vietnam version accurate. People aren't going to like seeing "the good guys" (ha) going off murdering and raping Vietnamese peasants.

That's nice I guess but I can't help but be frustrated that they focus so much on the Western Front.

[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;39296849]That's nice I guess but I can't help but be frustrated that they focus so much on the Western Front.[/QUOTE] Who wants to watch commies, anyway? :v:

[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;39296849]That's nice I guess but I can't help but be frustrated that they focus so much on the Western Front.[/QUOTE] Well, it's because it's one of the pinnacle parts of world history. I wish they would focus more on the Polish resistance or the North-African theatre.

Ugh, great, [i]another[/i] HBO serious about World War... [quote]"Masters of the Air."[/quote] Oh my god, yes, I can't wait. Band of Brothers/The Pacific, only about the air war. Fucking yes.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;39296943]Ugh, great, [i]another[/i] HBO serious about World War... Oh my god, yes, I can't wait. Band of Brothers/The Pacific, only about the air war. Fucking yes.[/QUOTE] If you don't like it, you can like...you know...[I]not watch it?[/I]

Lives of bomber-boys were awful, especially waist gunners. Prepare for feels.

[QUOTE=POLOPOZOZO;39296849]That's nice I guess but I can't help but be frustrated that they focus so much on the Western Front.[/QUOTE] Best front.

Now all we need is Ron Livingston and David Schwimmer and we can have the ultimate WWII trio. [sp]except ross will get everyone killed lol[/sp]

[QUOTE=Taggart;39296677]Needs more Band of Brothers from the German viewpoint[/QUOTE] I think you're forgetting the part where Steven Spielberg is developing this.

Not to mention there are already a [b]TON[/b] of classical films portraying the Vietnam war that people could easily name off the bat and it would be extremely challenging for Spielberg since he hadn't done a film in that genre in his career iirc.

I wonder if this means big bombers or the two seater ones.

[QUOTE=CabooseRvB;39297089]Not to mention there are already a [b]TON[/b] of classical films portraying the Vietnam war that people could easily name off the bat and it would be extremely challenging for Spielberg since he hadn't done a film in that genre in his career iirc.[/QUOTE] For every film about the Vietnam War, there's twenty about WWII [editline]20th January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Sharker;39297098]I wonder if this means big bombers or the two seater ones.[/QUOTE] A quick google "Mighty Eight" brought me these [img]http://www.aviatorshotline.com/sites/aviatorshotline.com/files/the_mighty_eighth_air_force_museum_img_0.jpg[/img] [quote][img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Color_Photographed_B-17E_in_Flight.jpg[/img][/quote]

The Vietnam War and other world events during that time interest me far more than WW2 stuff.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;39296774]I think they do it for WWII because for one, it was "the greatest" conflict in human history so far, and the least controversial over who was the "good guys" and who was the "bad guys" so to speak. Vietnam, and to a lesser degree but still a bit, Korea, has a lot of political controversy that may be difficult to steer clear from. Not necessarily from the show itself, but from the viewers saying, "No! That was wrong!" or "Yes! We should have gone further!" For example, the many war crimes and massacres that happened during Vietnam by the US. A great deal of the public don't know about them and the rest probably do their best to forget them. But they would be necessary to make a Vietnam version accurate. People aren't going to like seeing "the good guys" (ha) going off murdering and raping Vietnamese peasants.[/QUOTE] Well. The pacific raised a ton of that into question. The main problem with the Pacific was that people were expecting another Band of Brothers, and they got a different tale instead. It's still really good, but yeah. It requires multiple viewings to really appreciate. Since the first viewing always has BoB in your mind. Band of Brothers was about the bond between people who serve in the war, while the Pacific was about how wars can break a person and raised questions about the futility of it and the cruelty of the whole thing. The Pacific's arc starts off kinda happy and big expectations of glory, then immediately shatters that upon arrival and presents this dark, sadistic war. I liked that.