April 25, 2007 | HBO Films Announces 'The Pacific'--An Epic Ten-Hour Miniseries Event

Filming will begin this summer on THE PACIFIC, it was announced today by Colin Callender, president, HBO Films. To be shot in Australia, the epic ten-hour miniseries will be executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, the creative team behind the Emmy�-winning 2001 HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers."

"We're proud to be reuniting with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg to complete the story of the American combat experience of World War II," said Callender. "This epic miniseries is based on the true stories of three marines whose experiences in the Pacific embodied the unique nature of that theater of war, and dramatize how it profoundly differed from the European front. This was a different sort of war fighting a different sort of enemy."

A companion piece to "Band of Brothers," THE PACIFIC will be produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television. The production will be based at Melbourne Central City Studios in Melbourne, Victoria, with filming to take place in Melbourne, where U.S. troops camped in 1943, and Far North Queensland. The HBO Films production has collaborated with Film Victoria, the Pacific Film & Television Commission, Ausfilm and the New South Wales Film & TV Office. Kary Antholis, senior vice president, HBO Films, is the executive in charge of the project.

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 and Hugh Ambrose. 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.

The miniseries tracks the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines - Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge - 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 produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television; executive producers, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Gary Goetzman; co-executive producers, Tony To, Graham Yost; supervising producer, Bruce McKenna; co-producers, Robert Schenkkan, George P. Pelecanos, Michelle Ashford; production designer, Anthony Pratt; WWII consultant, Hugh Ambrose; military advisor, Capt. Dale Dye; U.S. casting, Meg Liberman; Australian casting, Christine King. Directors and cast to be announced.