HBO announced that it is teaming up with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg again and is developing a third World War II miniseries.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the untitled miniseries will be about the aerial wars through the eyes of enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force, known as the men of the Mighty Eighth.
The project's source material comes from historian Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction book Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany. The men of the “Mighty Eighth,” based in England, faced unprecedented physical, psychological and moral challenges, reports Deadline.
The previous World War II miniseries included 2001's Band of Brothers and 2010's The Pacific. Band of Brothers was based on the best-seller by historian Stephen E. Ambrose and featured Damian Lewis, who has gone on to star on Showtime’s Homeland. The Pacific was based primarily on the memoirs Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge.
Both miniseries are among HBO’s prestige projects. Band of Brothers was nominated for 19 Emmys and won six, including outstanding miniseries, it won Golden Globes and was awarded a Peabody. As for The Pacific, it won eight Emmys in 2010, which was more than any other program.
This third World War II miniseries has been discussed for months now with Spielberg, Hanks and Gary Goetzman returning to executive produce for Hanks and Goetzman’s Playtone and Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Graham Yost, who is the creator of Justified and wrote several episodes of Brothers and Pacific, also told The Hollywood Reporter that he was eager to re-team with Hanks and Spielberg on another WWII miniseries.