HBO’s Band of Brothers Spin-Off ‘The Pacific’ Coming in 2010?

Blog Article Courtesy: Kevin Coll

A series that I have been trying to keep my ear to the ground on is Steven Spielberg and Tom Hank’s spin-off of Band of Brothers called The Pacific. This HBO mini-series promises to be just as good as the Band of Brothers series but take place in a different setting. The title probably gives it a way but this series will show the war going on in the Pacific between the U.S. and the Japanese.

I haven’t heard much on the show except that they started filming back in 2007 and finished in May of 2008. I also had heard that it was supposed to come out this year but apparently it is being planned to come out next year, according to THR’s Live Feed.

When you mention their previous HBO war miniseries, the magnificent Band of Brothers, and then mention The Pacific to those who work at HBO, you get this pensive and hesitant expression. It’s not that they don’t think The Pacific is as good (at least one HBO person described the rough cuts as amazing), it’s just the Pacific Theatre was a very different front, with brutal atrocities being committed on both sides (see James Bradley’s excellent and disturbing book “Flyboys,” which makes the author’s better-known “Flags of Our Fathers” seem like a sixth grader’s essay on WWII).

Brothers also benefited from a wider range of dramatic settings. In other words, HBO senses The Pacific may be a tougher sell than the original regardless of its quality. On the upside, one episode is supposedly one extensive battle from start to finish, a small-screen attempt at taking on the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

I can definitely see how some are apprehensive over some things about the series being a tougher sell but in my opinion, Band of Brothers was so well done and successful, even the re-syndication of the series on the History Channel does well. I got the Blu-ray version of the series for Christmas this past year and it simply one of the best series ever on TV.

I think that alone makes The Pacific an easy sell because all the Band of Brothers fans were certainly watch the show to see a new series of stories. Also FYI the kid that played Timmy in Jurassic Park, Joe Mazzello is one the main characters, I think it is nice he is getting work.

More about The Pacific [2007 HBO Press Release]

The miniseries tracks the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines - Robert Leckie (played by James Badge Dale), Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda) - across the vast canvas of the Pacific. The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain forests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day.

The Pacific is based on the books “With the Old Breed,” by Eugene Sledge, which was hailed by historian Paul Fussell as “one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war,” and “Helmet for My Pillow,” by Robert Leckie (recipient of the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Annual Award), as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers. Continuing the World War II oral history work begun by his father Stephen E. Ambrose (author of the book Band of Brothers), Hugh Ambrose serves as a consultant on the miniseries, as does Captain Dale Dye (Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and Platoon).

“In addition to James Badge Dale (”The Departed”), Joe Mazzello (”Without a Trace”) and Jon Seda (”Kevin Hill”), actors featured in THE PACIFIC include (in alphabetical order) Akos Armont, Jon Bernthal (”The Office”), Joshua Biton (”National Treasure”), Adam Booth (”Doctors”), Simon Bossell (”Hotel de Love”), Laurence Breuls (”Ghost Rider”), Tom Budge (”Last Train to Freo”), Linda Cropper (”McLeod’s Daughters”), Brendan Fletcher (”Tideland”), Eamon Farren (”The Outsider”), Leon Ford (HBO’s “Tsunami: The Aftermath”), Daniel Frederiksen (”Stingers”), Scott Gibson (”Lucky Number Slevin”), Joshua Helman, Ashton Holmes (”A History of Violence”), Andrew Lees, Rami Malek (”The War at Home”), Martin McCann (”Closing the Ring”), Ian Meadows (”Home and Away”), Toby Moore (”Joanne Lees: Murder in the Outback”), Rohan Nichol (”All Saints”), Henry Nixon (”Happy Feet”), Keith Nobbs (”The Black Donnellys”), Annie Parisse (”Law & Order”), Sam Parsonson (”Love My Way”), Jacob Pitts (”The Novice”), Rupert Reid (”The Matrix Reloaded”), Mitch Ryan, William Sadler (”The Shawshank Redemption”), Gary Sweet (”Down in Splendor”), Anna Torv (”Young Lions”), Sandy Winton (”Two Twisted”), Dylan Young and Ashley Zukerman.”