Tag: Band of Brothers

Posted on in Television News

Cary Fukunaga Announces WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ Has Started Filming In London – Produced By Tom Hanks & Steven Spielberg

Director Cary Fukunaga is going to be following-up his James Bond movie No Time To Die with a WWII series, titled Masters of The Air, for producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks at Apple TV+. As you would expect the project is considered a sequel to previous HBO series Band of Brothers and The Pacific, except this time the series will be exploring the airmen of the war.

The filmmaker has announced on his Instagram account that they’ve completed the first week of filming in London under the working title of Whirlwind with cinematographer Adam Arkapaw. I can confirm they’ve also hired production designer Chris Seagers (Alien: Covenant, X-Men: First Class), who recently worked with Ridley Scott on the TNT/HBO Max series Raised By Wolves.

The series is based on the novel by Donald L. Miller with a cast that consists of Anthony Boyle as Major Crosby, Austin Butler as Major Gale Cleven, Raffery Law as Sgt. Ken Lemmons, Nate Mann as Major Rosie Rosenthal, Callum Turner as Major John Egan, and James Murray as Colonel Chic Harding.

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 you 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 US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. Masters of the Air is a story 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.

Cary Fukunaga as mentioned before is coming-off the massive production on Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 in No Time To Die with other credits that includes True Detective, Beasts of No Nation, Maniac, Jane Eyre, and Sin Nombre.

SOURCE: CARY FUKUNAGA

Posted on in Features

Marvel Has Been Trying To Adapt ‘Shang-Chi’ Since The 1980s

Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings looks like it could be going to be another moment for Marvel Studios to give another obscure comic book superhero their own blockbuster film franchise. The Marvel Studios trailer, that debuted on Monday morning, has already earned 24.1 million views just from the Shang-Chi Twitter account (amplified by other Marvel-owned accounts) and Marvel Entertainment’s YouTube channel.

It remains to be seen if this will equal box office dollars but it’s a good sign that folks are indeed ready for an Asian-led superhero franchise from Hollywood and could be an important moment to see more high-budgeted Asian-led blockbusters in the future.

While most people might assume that Shang-Chi was a recent decision at the studio, Marvel has actually been trying to get a live-action adaption going for decades going back to the 1980s.

Brandon Lee in RAPID FIRE (1992)

Inverse was able to speak with former Marvel Productions CEO and President Margaret Loesch, who revealed that Stan Lee met with Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee (Showdown In Little Tokyo, The Crow, Rapid Fire) at the Marvel offices for a potential Shang-Chi television series in the 80s. The late Bruce Lee and his film Enter The Dragon had been the template for the martial arts superhero. Sadly, Brandon had a tragic death as he was killed during the filming of The Crow.

There were also attempts to get a feature film back 20 years.

In 2001, Blade director Stephen Norrington was reportedly attached for a feature film of Shang-Chi alongside an early incarnation of Ghost Rider too. He quietly retired after making 20th Century Fox’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and headaches he had during that production. Norrington had originally wanted to cast Jet Li as Blade villain Deacon Frost but the actor was busy shooting Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon 4. You can tell from Blade that the filmmaker was heavily influenced by Hong Kong action movies with their use of wire-work, a year before The Matrix.

DreamWorks attempted to get things going again in 2003, as Variety reported they had hired Woo-ping Yuen (True Legend) to direct and script from Band of Brothers writer Bruce McKenna. Woo-ping Yuen had been the fight choreographer for The Matrix, Kill Bill Vol.2, Kung Fu Hustle, The Forbidden Kingdom, The Grandmaster, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Oscar-winner Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) boarded as a producer in 2004, a year after his Hulk movie was released. However, the rights to Shang-Chi eventually reverted back to Marvel.

Fast-forward to Marvel Studios being acquired by Disney and in late 2018 Deadline reported that the studio would be seeking a director for their Shang-Chi movie. Director Destin Daniel Cretton was ultimately selected with Canadian actor Simu Liu announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 as landing the superhero role.

Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings will be released by Disney on September 3, 2021.

SHANG-CHI & THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS – Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings” stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, who must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization. The film also stars Tony Leung as Wenwu, Awkwafina as Shang-Chi’s friend Katy and Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, as well as Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu and Ronny Chieng.

Posted on in Television News

‘Band of Brothers’ Follow-Up WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ Casts Austin Butler & Callum Turner

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg previously were behind HBO’s WWII series Band of Brothers and The Pacific about American soldiers that fought in European and Pacific campaigns. They’re currently working on a new show, Masters of The Air, that HBO passed on and landed at Apple TV+. An adaption of the novel from Donald L. Miller that focuses on bomber pilots aka bomber boys, which will be written by John Orloff and Graham Yost.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’s Austin Bulter and Fantastic Beasts 2 actor Callum Turner. They have landed the roles of Maj. Gale Cleven and Maj. John Egan.

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 you 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 US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. Masters of the Air is a story 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.

According to a report from Deadline from October, No Time To Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga is attached to tackle episodes. Also, I can confirm that Alien: Covenant and Raised By Wolves production designer Chris Seagers is going to be working on the series.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Posted on in Television News

‘No Time To Die’ Director Cary Joji Fukunaga To Direct WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ For Apple TV+ – Produced By Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg

Deadline reports that No Time To Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga will helm at least three episodes of the upcoming WWII series Masters of The Air for Apple TV+.

The wartime series will be produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, who were behind HBO’s Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Cary’s Parliament of Owls joins the producing team alongside Amblin Television and Playtone.

HBO passed on the expensive series and it eventually landed at Apple.

I previously reported that Alien: Covenant and X-Men: First Class production designer Chris Seagers would be working on the show. Seagers is no stranger to the WWII genre as he also worked on Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan as an art director.

Here is a synopsis of the Donald L. Miller book Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany, which the series is based on.

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 you 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 US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers.

The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America—white America, anyway. 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.

Masters of the Air is a story 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.

Cary has worked on television before with the first season of the hit HBO series True Detective. He most recently directed the final Daniel Craig era Bond movie titled No Time To Die which that has been delayed a second time from November 20th to April 2nd, 2021.

SOURCE: DEADLINE