YESSS, FINALLY!!! - Masters of the Air - The 8th Air Force, Spielberg, Hanks, Goetzman (Crew behind Band of Brothers, Pacific)

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

It's stopped and started and stopped and started, and HBO just couldn't make room.  Apple stepped up to the plate and said "hold my beer and here's $250 million".

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/apple-launches-house-studio-band-brothers-pacific-follow-up-1246746

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All of the producers behind both Brothers and Pacific are slated to return for the new installment. Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Steven Spielberg will exec produce for Hanks and Goetzman’s Playtone and the latter’s Amblin Television, respectively. Amblin TV’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey will co-exec produce alongside Playtnoe’s Steven Shareshian.

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 focused on historian Donald L. Miller's nonfiction book Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany

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Masters focuses the aerial wars through the eyes of enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force — known as the men of the Mighty Eighth — and who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. The drama arrives two decades after HBO won six Emmys (out of a whopping 19 nominations) for Band of Brothers and its 2010 sequel, The Pacific, which scored 24 noms and a leading eight wins.

If you don't know about the 8th Air Force, their casualty rates were higher than Marines/soldiers in the Pacific.  Just between two raids on Schweinfurt, the first raid lost them 16% of bombers (out of 375 or so), and a follow-up raid with more aircraft cost them 24% of bombers.

My grandfather spent time in the 8th Air Force during WWII, and I am fucking happy to see this finally.  It's going to surprise a lot of people.

Edited October 12, 2019 by atomheartbevo

[Dutch 4,464]

Well, an Apple subscription will be a small price to pay for this. So glad this project finally got the green light. 

[DougO 5,238]

So I guess this is some more streaming bullshit that I will never be able to see. I hope it sucks as much as Pacific did.

[futureman 22,365]

was the memphis belle part of the 8th?

[Dutch 4,464]

6 minutes ago, futureman said:

was the memphis belle part of the 8th?

Yes; Memphis Belle was assigned to the 91st Bombardment group, which was a part of the 8th Air Force.  

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

23 minutes ago, DougO said:

So I guess this is some more streaming bullshit that I will never be able to see. I hope it sucks as much as Pacific did.

If you buy certain an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod Touch or Mac these days, you get a year's worth of Apple TV subscription thrown in.

But this is probably going to take a good 2-3 years to do, at least, so....

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

10 minutes ago, Dutch said:

Yes; Memphis Belle was assigned to the 91st Bombardment group, which was a part of the 8th Air Force.  

Back in the '90s, after the film came out, there was some really fucking nutty conspiracy shit going on focused around the Memphis Belle - that they faked missions, that they shot down another B-17 or a fighter who was witness to them doing something.  I was around the conspiracy community at the time (JFK) and while the JFK stuff was entertaining, the Memphis Belle shit was downright fucking weird.  Not as weird as the UFO shit, but it's like of all the things to have a conspiracy about, trying to claim that they didn't do their missions, or were faking a bunch of stuff, etc. was just odd.

[BrickHorn 18,131]

I only hope it’s as good as The Starfighters.

[Onboard 2.0 9,083]

11 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Back in the '90s, after the film came out, there was some really fucking nutty conspiracy shit going on focused around the Memphis Belle - that they faked missions, that they shot down another B-17 or a fighter who was witness to them doing something.  I was around the conspiracy community at the time (JFK) and while the JFK stuff was entertaining, the Memphis Belle shit was downright fucking weird.  Not as weird as the UFO shit, but it's like of all the things to have a conspiracy about, trying to claim that they didn't do their missions, or were faking a bunch of stuff, etc. was just odd.

There was the scene where the co pilot took the tail gunners spot, and shot the fighter that did crash into a fellow bomber wasn't there ?  

How do you fake a mission ?  Everybody flying off together, and you just sneak off into the wild, blue, yonder.

[fellside 1,071]

I've been googling this every month or so for years.  Glad to hear it'll finally happen.

[RPM 26,146]

12 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

How do you fake a mission ?  Everybody flying off together, and you just sneak off into the wild, blue, yonder.

Umm, yeah. Your wingman might just notice you're not covering his ass and say something.

[Biff Tannen 45,383]

Awesome 

[billfromlaketravis 11,300]

I assume it'll be all up and comers like Band of Brothers, but have any acting names been attached to the project? 

It's very difficult to mess up Spielberg/Hanks, this should be good. 

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

36 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I assume it'll be all up and comers like Band of Brothers, but have any acting names been attached to the project? 

It's very difficult to mess up Spielberg/Hanks, this should be good. 

Maybe they can cast Matt LeBlanc or Matthew Perry as some asshole trying to train them?

[billfromlaketravis 11,300]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Maybe they can cast Matt LeBlanc or Matthew Perry as some asshole trying to train them?

Matthew Perry is still alive? 

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

1 minute ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Matthew Perry is still alive? 

You’re thinking Luke Perry, who accidentally killed himself In a Bangkok hotel closet.   Or was that Steve Perry?

[HornOnTheBayou 8,861]

Don't stop believing Steve Perry is still alive.

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

On 10/12/2019 at 9:16 AM, Onboard 2.0 said:

There was the scene where the co pilot took the tail gunners spot, and shot the fighter that did crash into a fellow bomber wasn't there ?  

How do you fake a mission ?  Everybody flying off together, and you just sneak off into the wild, blue, yonder.

I had to go poking around usenet archives from the 90s just out of curiosity, and the best I could find (that was not into Philadelphia Experiment territory, which was popular in the '90s) came down to basically that the 8th Air Force was intent on seeing them (along with a few others) make it to 25, and so they gave them occasional milk runs, possibly covered up them fucking around (faking mechanical issues, etc.), generated missions that had no opposition, etc.

And I think it is tied to the movie release - there was a lot of hate for both the 1940s documentary on the Belle (which is up on Netflix) and the 1990 movie - the first, everybody considered pure propaganda, the 1990 movie, too Hollywooded up (they had an easy last mission).

Anyways, I think the conspiracy stuff originated from some WWII vets who claimed the Belle (and a few others) was "chosen" by the leadership (Spaatz or whoever) to "complete" their 25 missions to raise morale, and so were given more milk runs than they should have had.

The claims were that in the summer of '43, the average life expectancy of the B-17 crews was 7-10 missions, and that statistically, the Belle, given her squadron, should not have made it to 25 mission.

I'm not going to deep-dive on it, but I'm sure somebody has dissected every single mission she had.

[number6 12]

Hope this is 12 O'Clock High on steroids

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

Speaking of the Memphis Belle, somebody came across several dozen unused reels of film from the original documentary and restored them, and showed them on HBO last year.

Footage

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Fans of classic war stories and aerial action are in for a unique and stirring mix of audio and visuals in Erik Nelson’s “The Cold Blue.” The handsome, lovingly reconstructed, if brief, documentary is based on unearthed footage shot by director William Wyler for his 1944 documentary “The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress.”

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More than 70 years later, director Nelson learned that 34 reels of “Memphis Belle” outtakes existed in the vaults of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and decided to repurpose them for an all-new film. But this noble task required a painstaking, frame-by frame, digital process to repair the scratched footage and restore it to its original clean state.

The 16-millimeter film was then transferred to 4K and the images enlarged for widescreen presentation. (Though “Blue” has been shown at festivals and in special screenings and opens Friday in a single Los Angeles-area theater, it will premiere on HBO June 6 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-day.)

In addition, as Wyler’s work was recorded without sound, the audio also needed to be reconstructed. It’s all a major technical achievement by Nelson and company.

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Nelson and his editors, Robert Erickson and Paul Marengo, have deftly blended a vibrant selection of footage with voice-over commentary from nine surviving veterans of the 8th Air Force: a mix of former pilots, gunners, navigators and bombardiers. These ex-flyers, all now in their 90s, serve as our guides, offering lucid memories on everything from training, combat, camaraderie and their brushes with death to the war’s aftermath.

Their stories and observations are alternately daunting, heroic, ironic and amusing, although the men all seem to agree that their time in the 8th was a essentially a “marriage” between soldiers and aircraft.

Their recollections include the ominous meaning of being served real eggs versus the more customary powdered kind (a “tough mission” was in the offing); how the Brits considered the Yanks “overpaid, oversexed and ‘over here’”; how, as the war dragged on, the Air Force switched from precision bombing to more widely destructive pattern bombing; and accounts of the dangerously frigid temperatures suffered while flying in the unpressurized and unheated B-17s at 30,000 feet (“On a warm day it would be 20 below”) — hence, the “cold blue” of the film’s title.

What’s startling to realize, as is often the case when considering soldiers in combat, is just how young these men were when they were flying on such remarkably perilous missions. Recalled one veteran, “I was 19 years old, the war came and we went and did what they told us to do.”

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It’s estimated that these troops had a 50% chance of survival; more members of the 8th Air Force died than in all of the Marine Corps. As another former flyer aptly notes, “I look back now and see why young people go to war: Older people got more sense.”

 

[Chad Fuck 17,429]

^That was good watching.

[Chad Fuck 17,429]

Since we're on the topic, here's a link to a couple pics of Memphis Belle I took a few weeks ago:

https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/index.php?/topic/361-the-airplane-fanatic-thread/&do=findComment&comment=1608773

 

[kevwun 15,488]

The Cold Blue is definitely worth watching.  It was really well done.

[oSuJeff97 3,435]

Yeah The Cold Blue was amazing. We had a thread on it. 

Still an amazing fact to me from The Cold Blue: there were more 8th Air Force casualties than all U.S. Marine casualties in WWII.  Also - during mid-1943 it got to the point where 8th AF had like an 80% casualty rate.

Super pumped about this after seeing this thing stop and start for years.

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

Okay. 16 months later.  ItsHappening.gif

AppleTV is dropping more than $200 million to get it made.  10 episodes.

https://deadline.com/2021/02/masters-of-air-austin-butler-callum-turner-band-of-brothers-sequel-apple-amblin-playtone-1234694573/

 

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The latest event series in the Band of Brothers, Masters of the Air is gaining some series momentum at Apple Studios as Elvis star Austin Butler and Callum Turnerhave been tapped to star in the new miniseries. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Tom Hanks & Gary Goetzman’s Playtone will produce

Based on the compelling book by Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air follows the true, deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. The series is written by Band of Brothersalumnus John Orloff and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Graham Yost, who are also co-executive producing. Produced by Apple Studios, Steven Spielberg will executive produce through Amblin Television, alongside executive producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for Playtone. Amblin Television’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey and Playtone’s Steven Shareshian serve as co-executive producers. Alex Maggioni will oversee the day-to-day development of the project for Amblin, alongside Spielberg, Frank and Falvey.

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Masters of the Air is a follow-up to the producers’ Emmy-winning World War II HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), which they made for HBO. Each won the Emmy for Best Limited Series; Band of Brothers won seven total Emmys in 20 nominations, while The Pacific won eight Emmys in 24 nominations. Masters of the Air began development at HBO but shook loose as the outlet was overhauled. Apple secured it quickly.

2021 Apple TV Pilots & Series Orders

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Deadline hears that the series will span 10 episodes that will cost well north of $200 million to produce. Actors had been meeting with producers and execs at the end of 2019 and came to a decision on the four leads in recent weeks.

 

 

 

[Chad Fuck 17,429]

Okay. 16 months later.  ItsHappening.gif
AppleTV is dropping more than $200 million to get it made.  10 episodes.
https://deadline.com/2021/02/masters-of-air-austin-butler-callum-turner-band-of-brothers-sequel-apple-amblin-playtone-1234694573/
 

The latest event series in the Band of Brothers, Masters of the Air is gaining some series momentum at Apple Studios as Elvis star Austin Butler and Callum Turnerhave been tapped to star in the new miniseries. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Tom Hanks & Gary Goetzman’s Playtone will produce
Based on the compelling book by Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air follows the true, deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. The series is written by Band of Brothersalumnus John Orloff and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Graham Yost, who are also co-executive producing. Produced by Apple Studios, Steven Spielberg will executive produce through Amblin Television, alongside executive producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for Playtone. Amblin Television’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey and Playtone’s Steven Shareshian serve as co-executive producers. Alex Maggioni will oversee the day-to-day development of the project for Amblin, alongside Spielberg, Frank and Falvey.

Masters of the Air is a follow-up to the producers’ Emmy-winning World War II HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), which they made for HBO. Each won the Emmy for Best Limited Series; Band of Brothers won seven total Emmys in 20 nominations, while The Pacific won eight Emmys in 24 nominations. Masters of the Air began development at HBO but shook loose as the outlet was overhauled. Apple secured it quickly.
2021 Apple TV Pilots & Series Orders

Deadline hears that the series will span 10 episodes that will cost well north of $200 million to produce. Actors had been meeting with producers and execs at the end of 2019 and came to a decision on the four leads in recent weeks.

 
 
 

This makes me giddy like a little girl with a new pony.

[billfromlaketravis 11,300]

14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Okay. 16 months later.  ItsHappening.gif

AppleTV is dropping more than $200 million to get it made.  10 episodes.

https://deadline.com/2021/02/masters-of-air-austin-butler-callum-turner-band-of-brothers-sequel-apple-amblin-playtone-1234694573/

 

 

 

 

Apple, great... So 100% CGI. Should look fantastic. 

[Dutch 4,464]

BoB and The Pacific were both greatness, and I have no doubt this series will be also. Assuming it doesn’t release before Dec 2021 when my free year expires, I’d subscribe for this alone. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Dutch

[Bama Llama 1,441]

'Scuse me for going slightly off-topic.  He wasn't in the 8th AF (was in 15th AF) but George McGovern flew 35 missions in WW2.  Stephen Ambrose's The Wild Blue, a fune read, was a good McGovern bio but had much, much more.  Cast my first prez vote for GMcG in 1972.  He was strong antiwar but had no chance vs Tricky Dick, alas.

[Hagbard Celine 10,599]

3 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Apple, great... So 100% CGI. Should look fantastic. 

they need to use whatever shop did the airport/aviation scenes for The Angel (netflix '18)

best aviation cgi i have ever seen

rock solid realistic heathrow and fiumicino 1970/1973, including tail shot of a landing TWA 707, BEA Comets, BOAC VC-10s, El Al 707, period-perfect liveries.

whatever shop did this, i hope they tap for the CGI

there are a number of encounters that would be awesome to see if they are willing to take some dramatic license with the units involved

the arado attacks on the remagen bridge first and foremost

there are dozens of these:

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/b-26-vs-me-262-the-marauder-close-encounters-with-the-jets-flown-by-luftwaffes-experten/

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

3 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Apple, great... So 100% CGI. Should look fantastic. 

Apple is not doing the production, they are just funding it.  There's not a lot of existing B-17s and B-24s, plus P-51s, 109s, 190s, etc. still floating around to be used, so there's going to be CGI no matter who makes it.  

The good news is that Apple has insanely deep pockets, this project has the time to get it right (look at how long Apple is allowing Asimov's Foundation series to be made), and Spielberg and Friends are overseeing it, and Apple considers it to be a flagship/destination series.

If you are concerned about CGI, go watch Apple's For All Mankind, or check out The Right Stuff on Disney+.  Or check the trailer for Apple's Foundation series - looks amazing.

For better or for worse, studios are realizing that if they drop a shitload of money on high-end series, they will make more money than they would with the movie theater model, as they can keep people coming back and paying them directly every month.

[YChang 3,424]

4 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Apple, great... So 100% CGI. Should look fantastic. 

This makes no sense.

[billfromlaketravis 11,300]

14 minutes ago, YChang said:

This makes no sense.

I guess you haven’t watched Greyhound. 

[YChang 3,424]

1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I guess you haven’t watched Greyhound. 

I have, I really liked it! Sorry, wasn't trying to be snarky. Atomheart above described it well above. 

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

I think Game of Thrones blurred the line when it comes to production values between movies and TV, and arguably Wandavision and some AMC stuff, along with Expanse, kind of finished that off (and Falcon and the Winter Soldier will, if Wandavision doesn't).  There were plenty of shows that did it years before (HBO's Rome, Band of Brothers, etc.) but Game of Thrones kind of said "hold my ale" and proceeded to school everybody on it - any GOT quality issues when it came to effects had more to do with production time crunches than anything else.

Expanse would probably be a better model for this 8th Air Force series than anything else.

It's an odd time we are living in - Apple is fully funding Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and it's not a limited run from what it sounds like, Amazon is fully doing a Lord of the Rings series, and Amazon is also doing a full-blown Wheel of Time series, with a season or two per book.

Movies aren't dead, but given that the major studios all have a major streaming platform (with the exception of Sony), I think the studios are moving more towards latching on to these big budget mini-series/series that will keep people subscribing. 

We are liable to see movies relegated to the second-tier status that TV series used to be at.  Everybody wants another Game of Thrones that is going to keep people subscribed for years, not something that puts butts in seats for a few weeks or months.

Not sure where I was going with this ramble.

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2023/10/05/spielberg-hanks-wwii-series-masters-of-the-air-gets-premiere-date/

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“Masters of the Air,” the third installment of the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks-led World War II trilogy — following “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” — finally has a release date, according to Apple TV+.

The nine-episode miniseries, starring Oscar-nominees Austin Butler (“Elvis”) and Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), is slated to launch with a two-episode debut on January 26, 2024, and will continue with one episode per week until March 15.

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Based on Donald L. Miller’s book of the same name, “Masters of the Air” follows American bomber pilots of the Eighth Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group, also known as the Bloody Hundredth, who repeatedly risked flying at 25,000 feet in frigid temperatures — in broad daylight — to bring the fight to Hitler’s doorstep.

Three years — 1942 to 1945 — of death-defying bombing runs by the Eighth’s Flying Fortresses over cities like Berlin, Dresden and Hanover were, for much of the war, the only battles Allied forces waged inside the territorial borders of Nazi Germany.

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The Eighth’s effort to pry Europe from the claws of the Third Reich — one that included unleashing 697,000 tons of bombs — proved to be overwhelmingly costly. By war’s end, over 47,000 of the 115,000 U.S. Army Air Force casualties were from the Eighth.

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Director Cary Fukunaga, the Emmy award-winning director behind the masterful first season of HBO’s “True Detective,” is credited with helming four of the nine episodes.

Reuniting with Spielberg and Hanks on the series is “Band of Brothers” writer John Orloff, who also served as a consultant on “The Pacific.”

True Detective director?  Writer from Band of Brothers? Yes Please!

 

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

On 10/12/2019 at 9:05 PM, fellside said:

I've been googling this every month or so for years.  Glad to hear it'll finally happen.

You just gotta wait a few more months.

[atomheartbevo 89,284]

 

[kevwun 15,488]

Of course I was just thinking about cancelling Apple TV.  Thanks a lot Steven Spielberg.

[RPM 26,146]

Apple TV is the new HBO.

[locodos 5,320]

oh damned, that's gonna be good.  I hope they start with training, almost a third of the deaths were NOT in combat.  My great uncle died in Montana in a training accident one week prior to deploying to England.  Those deaths were covered up to hide from our enemies that we were having real problems with our bombers fleets.

Dangerous to even take off and form up.

Spielberg should have plenty of dramatic scenes for us.  One of my favorite photos...  So much going on

[bschoolprof 6,223]

Release date set for January 15th, 2026.  

[Upgrayedd 5,797]

41 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

Release date set for January 15th, 2026.  

Da fuq?

[locodos 5,320]

43 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

Release date set for January 15th, 2026.  

not according to the googles

“Masters of the Air” is set to release its first two episodes on Jan. 26, 2024, with new episodes dropping each Friday until the season finale on March 15.

[UnivTex34 1,760]

43 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

Release date set for January 15th, 2026.  

https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2023/10/apples-highly-anticipated-action-packed-limited-series-masters-of-the-air-from-steven-spielberg-tom-hanks-and-gary-goetzman-to-premiere-globally-friday-january-26-2024/

[kevwun 15,488]

Yeah, there's no way it's that far out when they have enough special effects work done for that trailer.

[HornOnTheBayou 8,861]

1 hour ago, bschoolprof said:

Release date set for January 15th, 2026.  

You might need this thread. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by HornOnTheBayou

[bschoolprof 6,223]

It was a bad joke that missed it's mark.  We've been waiting forever.  

[Helobious 9,456]

Loved BoB and the pacific but probably won’t watch this. WW2 content is like the MCU now. Way too much of it and I’m just fatigued. Hard to believe there’s any more unique stories to tell.

[NorthLoop 14,027]

cool story bro