Back in 2001, HBO released a miniseries signed by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks as executive producers, and with a budget never seen before, 115 million euros, it told the true story of a company over 10 episodes. of American soldiers who fought on the European front during World War II. Emerging from the collaboration between the two in the successful Saving Private Ryan, which in 1999 left Spielberg with the Oscar for best director and a nomination for that award for Hanks, Blood Brothers anticipated the extremely high quality that dominates today what is made for the small screen, winning the Emmy and the Golden Globe for best miniseries.
Almost a decade later, the two joined forces again for The Pacific, which also aired on HBO and which, at a cost of almost 200 million euros, chronicled the adventures of three marines on different fronts of the conflict with Japan. The result was equally successful, winning eight Emmys, including a miniseries, out of a total of 19 nominations. That is why the enormous expectation generated by The Lords of the Air, the new installment from Amblin, Spielberg’s production company, and Platyone, Hanks’, which this time will premiere on Apple TV, is not surprising, particularly because everything related to it has been a great mystery in the three years that have passed since filming began.
An old desire of Spielberg, whose father was a pilot during World War II, is the new proposal that has raised the stakes at an estimated cost of 230 million euros, recreating the lives of a group of aviators who carried out risky missions in their flying fortresses. B-17 against Nazi Germany.
With the quality of its predecessors, if there is something that distinguishes it from the other two, it is the fame that some of its protagonists already bring. Damian Lewis and Michael Fassbender emerged from Blood Brothers and Simon Pegg, Tom Hardy, Jimmy Fallon, Colin Hanks, Dominic Cooper, James McAvoy, David Schwimmer, Ron Livingston and Andrew Scott also participated when they were complete strangers. A promising Rami Malek shined in The Pacific and Jon Bernthal could be seen before he was discovered in The Walking Dead.
Although the casting process in The Lords of the Air was similar to the first two parts, prioritizing the best candidates for a role over their popularity, the delay caused by the pandemic in the completion of the series meant that some of the who were chosen have already become stars. Thus, Austin Butler reappears in his first role after the Oscar nomination for Elvis and Barry Keoghan, who competed for that same award as best supporting actor last year for Souls in Banshee by Inisherin, is on everyone’s lips for his amazing participation in Emerald Fennell’s S altburn, for which he will probably be nominated this year as well, but for best actor.
Callum Turner, nominated for a Bafta for The Capture and one of the most popular actors of his generation in England, and the Irishman Anthony Boyle, who in another long-awaited Apple TV miniseries, Manhunt, plays Lincoln’s assassin, John, also have starring roles. Wilkes Booth. Likewise, Sawyer Spielberg, one of the seven children of the great director, has a prominent role in the first episodes.
Filmed with immersive technology particularly useful when recreating the intense aerial combats, the series also had notable filmmakers in the technical team led by John Orloff. Cary Joji Fukunaga, whose last film work was the farewell to James Bond, No Time to Die, was in charge of four of the nine episodes while Oscar nominee Dee Rees was in charge of two others.
