Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks to bring WWII drama Masters of the Air to Apple TV+

By Chris Gates Updated October 11, 2019

The team that brought you Band of Brothers and The Pacific is at it again. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Playtone, the production company owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, will adapt Donald L. Miller’s nonfiction novel Masters Of The Air for Apple. The limited series will air exclusively on Apple’s upcoming streaming service, Apple TV+.

Spielberg, Hanks, and Goetzman will serve as executive producers on the series, which tells the story of the Eighth Air Force, or the Mighty Eighth, a group of pilots that changed the course of World War II. Masters of the Air will be written by Band of Brothers scribe John Orloff. Deadline reports that the series will be about eight hours long, and will cost around $200 million to produce.

Interestingly, Masters of the Air will be the first Apple TV+ series filmed at Apple’s own production studio, which is also called Masters. Apple executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht will oversee the studio, Variety says.

Masters of the Air marks yet another instance of Apple poaching top-tier talent from its streaming service competitors. Band of Brothers and The Pacific, both of which Spielberg and Hanks produced, aired on HBO, where they earned a cumulative 43 Emmy nominations and won 14. Masters of the Air was also set to debut on the premium network, but HBO decided to pass on the project earlier this year, opening the door for Apple to swoop in and pick it up.

That’s becoming something of a trend. Just yesterday, Alfonso Cuarón, director of Netflix’s Oscar-winning film Roma, signed an exclusive deal with Apple to produce TV content for Apple TV+. That deal is said to last for five years.

In addition to Masters of the Air, Steven Spielberg is producing a revival of the sci-fi anthology series Amazing Stories for Apple TV+. The original Amazing Stories, which Spielberg created, ran on NBC for two seasons in the mid-’80s.

Apple TV+ launches on November 1, 2019, at $5 a month. Despite the staggering number of big names signed on for Apple TV+ content, analysts have expressed concerns about the service’s limited library and its overall effect on the streaming economy, which could be to drive up subscription prices across the board.

Topics

Contributor

Christopher Gates lives in Los Angeles, CA and writes about movies, TV, video games, and other pop culture curiosities. In…

Entertainment

The best animated movies on Netflix right now

A cat points a bat at another cat in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

While Nimona has been the big Netflix original animated film of the summer, it's far from the only addition to the lineup. Netflix is making sure that animation fans are well served in August with the first two Despicable Me movies, Bee Movie, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. However, Netflix's biggest recent addition is one of 2022's biggest animated hits: DreamWorks' Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Netflix's deals with Sony Pictures Animation, DreamWorks Animation, and Universal Pictures have given it a powerhouse library of animated films. And that's before we even get into Netflix's impressive originals like The Sea Beast. To help you keep track of what's new and what you can stream right now, we've updated our list of the best animated movies on Netflix.

Entertainment

From Barbarella to Howard the Duck: the 7 cheesiest sci-fi movies ever

Howard the Duck in "Howard the Duck."

The science-fiction genre has a vast smorgasbord of cheesy films stretching way back to the early days of cinema. Such pictures are known for their weird stories, unrealistic dialogue, low-budget productions, and exaggerated acting.

While many of these films have been panned by critics and audiences alike, some of them have garnered success for being "so bad, they're good." Whether or not they have been held up by a dedicated fan base, these seven movies stand out as the cream of the cheesy sci-fi crop.
Flash Gordon (1980)

Entertainment

10 best Batman stories ever, ranked

Batman Year One cover

Bounding from rooftop to rooftop, the Dark Knight never misses his mark. He operates like a well-oiled machine tracking bad guys, beating them to a bloody pulp, and throwing them in the slammer - or Arkham Asylum should they be anyone of Gotham's notable supervillains. As the brainchild of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, an artist and writer duo, Batman has been pounding the pavement of Gotham ever since his debut in Detective Comics in 1939. He's undergone a number of changes since his original conception ultimately becoming the brooding powerhouse we know today.

Most understand the basic tenants of Batman these days. His parents were murdered before his young eyes leading him down this path of personal vindication and pursuit of justice. Batman, in most iterations, never resorts to killing -- the one crime that separates his outlaw vigilante operations from the real criminals. Of course, it wasn't always that way. In Batman's earliest days, he had no qualms about ending the lives of baddies on the streets. Even now, some stories and films like Tim Burton's gothic take on the character depict him looking on with cold and uncaring glares as criminals meet their end. Regardless, Batman is mostly a well-established hero simply seeking justice and there are countless stories of the Caped Crusader. Let's take a look at the best among them.
10. Hush