"The Pacific" is Greenlighted

[Kn'thrak]

HBO Films has greenlit "The Pacific," a WWII miniseries from "Band of Brothers" exec producers Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman that will serve as a kind of companion piece to that earlier project.
Production will begin in Australia this summer, with the mini to run on the net possibly in 2009.

Spielberg, Hanks and Goetzman will serve as exec producers. HBO Films will produce in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television.

Tony To and Graham Yost are co-exec producers. Bruce McKenna is supervising producer, and Robert Schenkkan, George P. Pelecanos and Michelle Ashford are co-producers.

Project, an Asian-theater take on WWII whose title had also surfaced at one time as "The Pacific War," had been in development at the pay net.

Cast members and a director have yet to be attached

Source

Can't wait. I remember watching all B.o.B. episodes in a row which took me over 10 hours which i forgo sleep. fantadic show n news!!!!

[michalz00]

Fantastic news!! I loved Band of Brothers. 2009 a year to remember "Avatar" and "The Pacific"

[chernabog_ca]

I wonder which event(s) it will cover. Like Ryan, BoB started with D-Day, will this start with Iwo Jima to tie in with Flags and Letters?

[michalz00]

I don't know when will this start but I can bet it will end in Hiroshima...

[Kn'thrak]

i read years ago that Hiroshima will only be in the middle of the series. Just like B.o.B. the war ended but the series kept on going for further charactor development.
Didn't BoB end with the company leader saying he is going to the Pacific to continue to train or fight? I loved the leader. Fantastic actor

[Jake]

I very much doubt that it would start with Iwo Jima. The war in the Pacific was rolling well before that.

If I were directing this I'd start with the Philippines and the other Allied losses as it would really show the futility of defense early in the war. I've always thought that it is important for characters in war films to be humbled by defeat. This way they are really human and it's their defiance and perseverance that defines them later.

I'd love to see those huge battles at Coral Sea and Midway, the Japanese battleships during this war were true behemoths that made the Allied Navy look like sailboats.

Based on history and the nature of the bulk of the fighting I would anticipate that the series would follow a pilot and not an infantryman. I would also love to see some Australian soldiers in this. I love when WWII films follow an American or British soldier who along the way encounters French, Polish, or Canadian soldiers. It always lends such films credibility seeing as the Allies had extremely mixed units.

[j7wild]

well if they are going to do the same thing with BOB and follow one Marine Unit from Baptism of Fire to the end of the Pacific Campaign, I would start with Guadalcanal since the ones in the Philippines didn't make it out.

[Jake]

What was convenient about BoB was that there was only one theater of operations there so they all fought in the same battles.

The Pacific war wasn't like that at all. You have the Navy doing their own thing, you have carrier aircraft fighting battles alone, and then of course you have the marines who aren't taking part in the huge naval engagements.

By following a carrier pilot or a squadron we could be exposed to most of the battles. Not to belittle the achievements of the Marines but it was the Navy and its carrier aircraft that really won the decisive engagements in the Pacific.

I really hope they get someone to play MacArthur, even if it's just a small role. I'd love to see some of his famous actions in the war.

[michalz00]

I love when WWII films follow an American or British soldier who along the way encounters French, Polish, or Canadian soldiers. It always lends such films credibility seeing as the Allies had extremely mixed units.

I have the same thing...

It's sometimes disappointing when the story is told from only one point of view. Every nation that took part in WWII has its own heroes and stories. I know it's not possible to tell everyones story in one film but sometimes just one small thing is enough. Show a solider in his country uniform or a flag painted on a vehicle... that's it! These little things help the movie and the viewer to better understand history.

I know it takes a lot of research and money... but they should do it!

Sometimes funny things happen... Take Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor (not a very good example, I know...). When Affleck's character goes to England to fight, he is given the fighter aircraft. The aircraft's code on the back shows RF. Which is actually the code for Polish Fighter Squadron no. 303

I was hoping to see maybe some Polish pilots but...

Here you can read about no. 303 Squadron. It's most famous from shooting down the largest number of enemy aircrafts during the Battle of Britain.

I also added some screen caps from "Pearl Harbor".



I'm still waiting for a modern movie about Monte Cassino, it's like an Iwo Jima for Polish soliders.