World War II nerds are being well catered for by Hollywood at the moment. November will see the release of Netflix’s four-part adaptation of American author Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See, with Kate Winslet’s Lee – a biopic of Vogue model turned war correspondent Lee Miller – hitting cinemas before the end of the year. And in January? Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman – the trio behind Band of Brothers – are dropping Masters of the Air on AppleTV+.
Like Band of Brothers, the nine-episode series is based on a nonfiction book: Donald L Miller’s Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany. Donning goggles for the series: Academy Award nominees Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan, along with Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Nate Mann, Rafferty Law, Josiah Cross, Branden Cook, and Ncuti Gatwa, aka Dr Who.
By the sounds of it, the plot will be macho enough to temporarily supplant men’s fantasies about the Roman empire (at least until Paul Mescal is papped in a breastplate while shooting Gladiator II). As Goetzman has it in the AppleTV+ press release, Masters will be “a salute to the brave men of the 8th Air Force, who, through their courage and brotherhood, helped defeat Nazi Germany”.
And while much of the action will take place at 25,000 feet, Masters will provide more back story for its leading men over the course of its nine-hour run than, say, Dunkirk (although hopefully we’ll see just as much good knitwear as we did in Nolan’s 2017 epic). In the meantime, Butler and Keoghan are really wearing the hell out of their bomber jackets in a first look at the series, dropped by AppleTV+ on 5 October. Let’s hear it for the (Bomber) boys.
