Way back in 2013 it was announced that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks were looking to follow their acclaimed TV dramas Band of Brothers and The Pacific with a third World War II series entitled Masters of the Air.
The project was originally intended for HBO but sat languishing in development hell until last year when it was revealed that Apple TV+ had picked up the series, and now comes word from Deadline that Spielberg’s Amblin and Hanks’ Playtone have enlisted No Time To Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga to direct the first three episodes.
Fukunaga does have experience on the small screen, having directed the first season of HBO’s True Detective as well as creating Netflix’s Maniac and executive producing TNT’s The Alienist.
Masters of the Air is based upon the book of the same name by historian Donald L. Miller, with Band of Brothers writers John Orloff and Graham Yost adapting, and will explore the aerial wars of World War II through the eyes of enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force.
Production on the $200 million-budgeted series is set to get underway in the UK in March.
