More war from Spielberg

War History Online has an article about the latest from Spielberg and Hanks:

Yes, you read it correctly, there is yet another World War Two miniseries coming from the magic duo of Steven Spielberg (photo, left) and Tom Hanks (photo, right). After their epic World War Two miniseries Band of Brothers, and the somewhat disappointing The Pacific, they have teamed up again for a third series, about the American Eighth Air Force that flew through the skies over Europe to destroy the German potential to wage war by destroying its industry.
Joining an oeuvre that already includes 2001's Band of Brothers and 2010's The Pacific, the untitled miniseries will explore the aerial war through the eyes of enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force, known as the men of the Mighty Eighth. The project will use as its source material historian Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction book 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 Two 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 re-team with Hanks and Spielberg on another World War Two epic. Now that the source material has been optioned, the project can move into development, though additional material may be added later.
Band of Brothers, an eleven-hour epic that ran in ten parts in 2001, was based on the best-selling book 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’s Homeland. The premiere of Band of Brothers, just days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, drew ten million viewers (though ratings measurements at that time were less accurate than they are today).
The Pacific, based primarily on the memoirs Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge, followed men in three regiments of the First Marine Division as they battled the Japanese in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. The first of its ten parts pulled in over three million viewers for its premiere in March of 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 over a hundred million dollars to produce, and The Pacific was budgeted at two hundred million dollars; 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 nineteen Emmys and won six, including outstanding miniseries; it also won Golden Globes and was awarded a Peabody. The Pacific took home eight Emmys in 2010, more than any other program.

Rico says he looks forward to it...