In October 2006 Dale Dye was interviewed by "Spirit" Southwest Airline's onboard magazine. Here is what he had to say about the new series:
What about the rumors of a Band of Brothers sequel?
"Yep, there will be a sequel. We learned a lot doing Band of Brothers,
and we're going to try to raise the bar. It'll be with HBO again and
Tom Hanks is executive producing. This time around we're going to
follow the First Marine Division through the major battles of the
Pacific War. The 10 episodes so far will include Guadalcanal, Peleliu,
New Britain, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima. We even have a naval aviation
episode focusing on the Battle of Midway. We're reading scripts now.
This is going to be a huge, huge, huge undertaking"
Well fast forward to February 2007. The rumors about "With The Old Breed" written by E.B. Sledge being source material have been right all along. He will be featured as one of the main characters according to some people auditioning for parts who recieved character breakdowns. "With The Old Breed" is one of the best books on WW2 of all time and I highly recomend reading it:
http://www.amazon.com/Old-Breed-At-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/0195067142/sr=8-1/qid=1161979730/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6800954-5612038?ie=UTF8&s=books
You are probably wondering why Iwo Jima is listed since the 1st Marine Division didnt fight there. Well there have also been rumors since the very begining that John Basilone, one of the most legendary Marines of all time, will also be a main character. He won the Medal of Honor on Guadalcanal and then was shipped back to the states for awhile. He eventually ended up with another unit on Iwo Jima. Anyway he will also be a main character.
Robert Leckie, who wrote "Helmet for My Pillow" will also be a lead role.
The decision to film in either Hawaii or Australia has been going back and forth for many months now but it seems that the decision has been made to shoot in Australia. A bootcamp for the actors is scheduled to begin sometime in June or July with filming starting in August. The articles I have seen say it will last 10-11 months.
Here are the character Breakdowns that DarkKnight88 (auditioning for Leckie) posted over on the spielbergfilms.com forums posted:
http://www.spielbergfilms.com/forum/showpost.php?p=72776&postcount=82
I also run a group for "The Pacific" over on Facebook so if you would like this information in a more complete format you can head over there and join the group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2215747523
Oh and btw Bruce Mckenna, one of the headwriters for BOB, is also writing "The Pacific". He posts over on wildbillguarnere.com every once in awhile. He has already stated that the episode on the Battle of Midway had to be cut due to how much it would cost. They decided to focus on a smaller core of characters which I believe is a good thing. I will try and keep you guys updated as I learn more.
Edited on 02/26/2007 2:14pm
Edited 3 total times.
Edited 3 total times.
