In June 1943, 36 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces' 100th Bomber Group arrived at an air base in England, each with a flight crew of 10, all of whom had served in World War II. was there to fight against Nazi Germany.
Four months later, 34 of the 36 Flying Fortresses were shot down, earning the group the nickname “The Bloody 100.”
If that sounds like a compelling story, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks must have thought so too. They, along with fellow executive producer Gary Goetzman, acquired the rights to Masters of the Air, a limited series of the same name depicting the history of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, including the Bloody 100 Air Force.
“Masters of the Air,” which premiered in two episodes Friday on Apple TV+, follows Spielberg, Hanks and Gatesman in 2001’s “Band of Brothers” and 2010’s “The Pacific.” This is the final installment of the World War II series trilogy that was started.
This is a comprehensive war story, a perfectly crafted series that captures the drama inherent in the stakes of life and death. Crews board huge planes, fly dangerous daylight bombing missions over enemy territory, and, if they survive the terror of anti-aircraft flak and German Messerschmitt fighter jets, do it again a day or two later. I left to start over.
“When you look back at the series, what's one thing that stands out to you? We tried to do the danger the best we could,” said actor Nate Mann, who plays Major Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal. Told. “Unsettlingly. How grueling these missions were.”
Like the other main characters in the series, Rosenthal was a real person. A young lawyer from Brooklyn, he enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor and became the 100th man to beat the odds and become one of the war's most decorated bomber pilots.
Mann stars alongside leading actors including Austin Butler and Callum Turner as his best friends Maj. Gail “Buck” Creven and Maj. John “Bucky” Egan, and Anthony Boyle as B-17 navigator Maj. Harry Crosby. A member of Jin's quartet.Later becomes the navigator of the entire bomb group.
The budget is estimated to be between $250 million and $300 million, and the talent of the cast and crew is matched by incredible verisimilitude in all departments. Period costumes, hair and makeup. And most impressively, the B-17 Flying Fortress.
There are still only a few dozen flying fortresses in existence, and only a handful are in flight-ready condition. For Masters of the Air, that's no problem because he created two full-size replicas to film on the runway and a small section inside to film up close with the actors. did.
All of the in-flight scenes are made up of a huge complex that includes the cockpit, navigation and bomber stations, and bomber parts and internal actors that can be tilted and rotated to simulate flight and attacks by fighter bullets and flak. It was filmed on a soundstage with a gimbal-mounted gun arrangement.
Instead of traditional green screen technology, the production created giant wall and ceiling LED screens onto which flights and dogfights were projected. This allowed actors to react in real time on set to the same images that viewers would react to on the series.
