Masters of the Air Producer Explains Why It’s Not on HBO Like Band of Brothers and The Pacific

Playtone producing partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman have long dedicated themselves to telling the stories of the Greatest Generation’s courage under fire in World War II, first with the groundbreaking miniseries Band of Brothers and later with The Pacific. Now they’ve turned their attention to saluting the valiance of American aviators in Masters of the Air.

But fans of Band of Brothers and The Pacific will note that unlike those series and Playtone’s From the Earth to the Moon, Masters of the Air is not an HBO project but rather Apple TV+. According to Goetzman, it wasn’t for lack of interest on HBO’s part.

“They insisted on us developing it. We had never made any television for anyone other than HBO. Regimes change, budgets get different, attitudes towards what these networks want to do or not do change. But they’re all very friendly. They were pushing us to develop this,” Goetzman recalled during a recent interview with IGN.

“When we finally came around to it and newer people were there and we started talking about budget, it was obvious they couldn’t handle it, at least at that point in time. And [fellow executive producer] Steven Spielberg said, ‘Let’s go to Apple TV+.’ And so we did and met with their two head guys there. And they said, ‘Hey, just don’t go over this number and we’re with you. We’ll do it.’ And they did, and they’ve been great.”

Masters of the Air chronicles the 100th Bomb Group’s raids over Nazi Germany, which were particularly deadly because they were conducted in the daytime (the British flew at night).

Not unlike how First Man, Apollo 13, The Right Stuff, and From the Earth to the Moon all showcased how crude and jerry-rigged early spacecraft were, Masters of the Air reveals in painstaking detail that enemy fire wasn’t the only thing crews had to worry about at 25,000 feet while flying in what were proverbial buckets of bolts.

“75% of them went down,” Goetzman said. “It was a miracle. It was just amazing [that more didn’t go down]. Rough edges, thinnest skin on those planes you can imagine. Truly like a Coke can of the day. And then, these huge engines. These men got to know these planes pretty well. This fact of them being able to fly on one engine and all that, but it’s pulleys and strings and seemingly very simple, not too strategic in what the controls are that they manage.”

Band of Brothers and The Pacific depicted some of the real veterans in interviews within those shows. But in 2024, there are precious few WWII veterans still alive, a missing presence that the production certainly felt. “There were four gentlemen who were at our premiere, and they’re all over a hundred. Two of them were in our documentary about the show, and they are lucid and with us,” Goetzman said.

“We definitely lost great sources of information when we lost the guys of this. Because of the distance, we are away from World War II, we now don’t have many people left to talk to. Yes, during Band of Brothers, you saw them. They were all around us, from Major Winters on. A little bit less with The Pacific. And now, it’s difficult to get these guys who can really still relate the stories from the day.”

The first two episodes of Masters of the Air premieres on Apple TV+ on January 26th, followed by one new episode every Friday through March 15, 2024.

Based on Donald L. Miller’s book of the same name, and scripted by John Orloff, Masters of the Air stars Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, Callum Turner, Anthony Boyle, Nate Mann, Rafferty Law, Josiah Cross, Branden Cook, and Ncuti Gatwa.

Read our Masters of the Air review, which we deemed “sincere, highly-watchable, and shines a welcome spotlight on a horrifically costly and irregularly explored aspect of the Second World War.”

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And be sure to check out IGN’s Top 100 TV Shows of all time, where Band of Brothers ranked 54th.

This interview has been edited for clarity.