1:05 PM PST 1/18/2013 by Marisa Guthrie
The follow-up to "Band of
Brothers" and "The Pacific" will be based on Donald Miller's
"Masters of the Air."
Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks at the
premiere of "The Pacific" in 2010.
HBO confirmed Friday that it is
developing a third World War II miniseries from Tom Hanks and Steven
Spielberg.
Joining an oeuvre that already includes
2001'sBand of Brothers and 2010's The Pacific, 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 Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction
tome Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War
Against Nazi Germany.
Spielberg, Hanks and Gary Goetzman 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. Justified creator Graham
Yost, who wrote several episodes of Brothers and Pacific,
recently told The Hollywood
Reporter that he was eager 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.
Band of Brothers, an 11-hour epic that
ran over 10 parts in 2001, was based on the best-seller by historian Stephen
E. Ambrose, 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 Damian Lewis; the British actor was then mostly
unknown to American audiences but would go on to a slew of awards and accolades
in Showtime’sHomeland. The premiere of Band of Brothers, 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).
The Pacific, based primarily on the
memoirs Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie andWith the
Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge, 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. Brothers cost $125 million to produce, and The
Pacificwas budgeted at $200 million; millions more were spent on promotion for
both series.
But Band of Brothers and The
Pacific are among HBO’s prestige projects, and both cleaned up during
awards season. Brothers was nominated for 19 Emmys and won
six, including outstanding miniseries; it also won Golden Globes and was
awarded a Peabody. The Pacifictook home eight Emmys in 2010,
more than any other program.
Email: Marisa.Guthrie@thr.com; Twitter:
@MarisaGuthrie
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