He might not be heading towards the Robopocalypse as fast as we all thought, but Steven Spielberg is not a man to rest for long. Some of the time he spends *not *shooting rampaging robots will be taken up executive producing a third World War II miniseries with Tom Hanks for HBO. This time, the pair is planning Masters Of The Air.
Following on from Band Of Brothers and 2010’s The Pacific, it appears we won’t have to wait nine years for another Spielberg/Hanks war joint. This time out they’re interested in the enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force, known colloquially as the Mighty Eighth.
The pair has the rights to Donald L Miller’s book Masters Of The Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought The Air War Against Nazi Germany, which follows the Mighty Eighth as they carried out bombing runs in France and Germany and engaged in air to air combat. The Eighth survives to this day as a key US fighting force.
It’s early days for the project: HBO is developing the idea along with Spielberg and Hanks, but it’ll be a while before we see it. Hopefully some of the regular collaborators on the last two miniseries –including Graham Yost, who now runs Justified – will sign on quickly now the props are beginning to spin.