Masters of The Air: release date, cast, storyline, trailer release, and everything you need to know.

Indeed, the upcoming American miniseries Masters of the Air will focus only on the exploits of the Eighth Air Force of the aforementioned United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Amblin Television, Parliament of Owls, and Play tone are assisting Apple Studios in its production. Apple TV will have it accessible. The most recent episode of the military drama series Band of Brothers is, in fact, Masters of the Air. Starring US actor Austin Butler, who received high appreciation for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in the 2022 Baz Luhrmann film, it will debut on Apple TV in 2022.

Two other American celebrities are Nate Mann and Freddy Carter. Young British celebrities like Anthony Boyle, Raff Law, Josh Bolt, and Callum Turner are also prevalent. In command of this ten-part series on the last year of World War II is Cary Fukunaga. His most recent film, Neither Time to Die, is a successful Bond film. A new television series, Masters of Air, will focus on pilots during World War II. People are eager to witness the show more than ever thanks to current trends in movies. The Mighty Eighth Air unit, an American air unit that rose to fame during World War II for its valour, will be the exclusive subject of the television series.

A lot of pressure is on Masters of the Air to live up to the high expectations of the public, which have been heightened by some current trends in filmmaking. The program explores the history of World War II and aerial combat. Masters of the Air is, in fact, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ third World War II production. It features a large cast, which includes Barry Keoghan and Austin Butler. While filming Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg collaborated on the HBO film Band of Brothers because they shared a common interest in World War II.

Following the positive reception to the miniseries, the two collaborated once more on The Pacific, a second series that also received positive reviews. The much anticipated fifth season of Spielberg and Hanks is finally being produced and will be accessible on Apple TV.

In Steven Spielberg’s Masters of the Air on Apple TV+, Austin Butler will go on a new journey through the skies of World War II before the Academy Award–winning hero of Elvis exchanges his “blue suede shoes” for a bald cap in Dune: Part II. Masters of the Air, which is based on Donald L. Miller’s critically acclaimed novel, will recount the amazing true story of the American Eight Air Force. More precisely, the show will narrate the amazing story of the fearless young pilots who risked their lives to battle the German army in the air.

While there are many of excellent films set in the Second World War, there aren’t nearly as many television shows set in the same era. The Emmy-winning miniseries Band of Brothers, which told the tales of several men who contributed to turning the course of the war on V-J Day, is one notable exception, though. Since its 2001 premiere, that ground-breaking series has not been surpassed, despite the fact that The Pacific, which is likewise a fantastic example of a great World War II series, is being created by the same crew as Band of Brothers.

For aficionados of the genre and era, the news that many of the same famous people who brought Band of Brothers to life would be working on Masters of the Air is extremely encouraging. Here’s all we currently know about Masters of the Air, including cast, plot, release date, and additional information about the World War II pilot series.

The group that brought us the critically acclaimed Band of Brothers in 2001 and its sequel The Pacific in 2010, is back with another World War II miniseries, Masters of the Air. Masters of the Air, the third WWII epic from Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman, will hit theatres in 2024 thanks to a partnership with Apple TV+. There is a great deal of excitement for the impending Second World War miniseries, which stars Austin Butler (Elvis), Callum Turner (Fantastic Beasts), and Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin).

The 101st Airborne Division’s Easy Company was the subject of Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), which concentrated on different 1st Marine Division regiments and their exploits against the Japanese in the Pacific. Once again cantered on Europe, Masters of the Air will focus on the pilots of the 100th Bombardment Group, which at the close of World War II was one of the most decorated and illustrious wings of the US Army Air Force, despite suffering some extremely terrible casualties.

Release Date of Masters of the Air

Although the show’s makers have not yet disclosed an official release date, production has already begun. The release of Masters of Air is most likely scheduled for autumn 2023. The show’s makers haven’t revealed much about it yet, but over the next months, we should find out all we don’t know.

Masters of the Air Cast

Austin Butler as Major Gale Cleven

Callum Turner as Major John Egan

Anthony Boyle as Major Harry Crosby

Nate Mann as Major Robert Rosenthal

Raff Law as Sgt. Ken Lemmons

James Murray as Major Chic Harding

Tommy Jessop

Barry Keoghan as Lt. Curtis Biddick

Kai Alexander as Sgt. William Quinn

Freddy Carter as Lt. David Friedkin

Nikolai Kinski as Colonel Harold Huglin

Oaklee Pendergast as Sgt. William Hinton

Louis Greatorex as Capt. Joseph Payne

Adam Long as Capt. Bernard DeMarco

Jordan Coulson as Lt. Howard Hamilton

Fionn O’Shea as Sgt. Steve Bosser

Nitai Levi as Sgt. Paul A. Vrabec, Jr.

Laurie Davidson as Lt. Herbert Nash

Francis Lovehall as Captain Wendell Oliver Pruitt

Bradley Banton as Lieutenant Lee “Buddy” Archer

Edward Ashley as Lt. Col. John B. Kidd

Kieron Moore as Sgt. Clifford Starkey

David Shields as Major Everett Blakely

Jon Ewart as Lt. William Couch

Daniel Briggs as Sgt. William Crabb

George Smale as Lt. Raymond Nutting

James Meunier as Lt. Kenneth Lorch

Sam Hazeldine as Col. Albert Clark

Darragh Cowley as Lt. Glenn Graham

Elliot Warren as Lt. James Douglass

Adam Silver as Lt. David Solomon

Ncuti Gatwa as 2nd Lt. Robert Daniels

Josh Bolt as Lt. Winifred “Pappy” Lewis

Ben Radcliffe as Capt. John D. Brady

Louis Sparks as Sgt. Lester Saunders

Sonny Ashbourne Serkis as Lt. James Evans

Jack Franklin as Charles Mylius

Kwame Agyei as Lt. Joseph Evans Gordon

Phillip Lewitski as Lt. Francis Harper

Sawyer Spielberg as Lt. Roy Frank Claytor

Alex Boxall as Sgt. Monroe Thornton

Christopher Lakewood as Col Thomas Jeffery

Ian Dunnett Jnr as Lt. Ron Bailey

Sid Phoenix as Ralph Nist

Robert Hands as Major Gustav Simoleit

Stephen Campbell Moore as Major Marvin “Red” Bowman

Jojo Macari as Capt. Oran Petrich

George Webster as Lt. Glenn W. Dye

John Hopkins as Dr. Wendell ‘Smokey’ Stover

Dimitri Leonidas

The Plot of Masters of the Air

Cary Joji Fukunaga, who oversaw the delayed James Bond film No Time to Die, is currently running Masters of the Air. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks serve as executive producers. The book Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought this Same Air War Against Nazi Germany by Donald L. Miller served as the basis for the film. The writers of the television series Band of Brothers, John Orloff and Graham Yost, also scripted it.

Battles in the air will be the main theme of Masters of the Air, but since Spielberg and Hanks’s last two WWII films, the realism has significantly increased. Realistic flying scenes may be found in some of the most well-known films ever made, like Top Gun: Maverick, Dunkirk, and Devotion. Numerous parts in this movie were shot in actual aircraft. Maverick is genuine in a lot of Top Gun. For the film, the performers even took to the skies in actual planes. Masters of an Air has to live up to the high expectations set by recent non-CG animated films about air wars if it is to succeed.

Additionally, Masters of the Air needs to be faithful to the real-life conflict it depicts. These films have gained notoriety for this very reason. Masters of the Air wouldn’t have this issue because, aside from the film Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg and Hanks’ WWII dramas are renowned for being realistic. However, Masters of the Air must be as true to movies like Top Gun: Maverick, which employ authentic planes from the appropriate era rather than models or computer-generated imagery.

Masters of the Air,” who is making?

Masters of the Air will include executive producers Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman all three of whom were crucial in helping Band of Brothers get off the ground as stated in the description. Cary Joji Fukunaga, director of True Detective and Maniac, as well as the movies Beasts of No Nation and No Time to Die, is also participating in the production. Four of the show’s episodes will apparently be directed by Fukunaga, while the other five will presumably be directed by Dee Rees (Mud bound), Timothy Van Patten (The Sopranos), and the Captain Marvel team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

Production designer Chris Seagers (Raise by Wolves), editors Saar Klein (Almost Famous), Mark Sanger (Jurassic World Dominion), Spencer Averick (Selma), Sarah Flack (Lost in Translation), and Billy Rich (Ghost in the Shell) round out the cast. Cinematographers Adam Arkapaw (Macbeth), Jac Fitzgerald (Under My Skin), Richard Rutkowski (The Americans), and David Franco (Ray Donovan) round out the group.

Episodes list

Majors Gale Cleven and John Egan of the USAAF, assigned to the 100th Bombardment Group, go to England in the spring of 1943 to support the allied war effort against Nazi Germany. In June, the 100th, made up of four B-17 squadrons from RAF Thorpe Abbotts, is dispatched throughout the day to attack Bremen, Germany’s military objectives. The operation is abandoned because of the severe cloud cover, which prevents the bombardiers from confirming the targets even with the use of the sophisticated Norden bombsight. After being forced to fly under intense anti-aircraft fire, fighter fighters from the Luftwaffe attack the 100th.

The 100th deals with its first casualties in action. RAF members confront the US strategy of daylight attacks in a pub; Lieutenant (Lt.) Curtis Biddick, feeling belittled, wins a bare-knuckle boxing bout against a British pilot. The significance of ground staff is also emphasized in this episode. Major Cleven is assigned to command the 100th on their second mission, which involves attacking German U-boat pens in Norway, when Major Marvin Bowman becomes ill and cannot continue. Even though he feels airsick, Lt. Harry Crosby completes the mission successfully. When Lt. Biddick’s B-17 sustains damage, the other aircraft lower their speed to keep up with it, and Biddick’s B-17 makes a safe, power-less landing in Scotland. After a wild night in the mess, the 100th’s soldiers see an air raid on Norwich.

Before heading to North Africa to rendezvous with the Twelfth Air Force, the 100th takes part in the August 1943 operation from Schweinfurt to Regensburg, which involves destroying aircraft production factories located in the heart of Germany. When Lt. Biddick and his co-pilot attempt an emergency landing in a clearing in the forest, they crash and die. After his B-17 is shot down, Sergeant Quinn escapes by parachute; he lands in Belgium and is greeted by resistance fighters from an escape line. At Telergma Airfield in Algeria, the 100th’s remaining men arrived. Twenty-four bombers had been lost by the Regensburg task force, and almost sixty of the 122 aircraft that made it to North Africa alive had been damaged in combat.

New B-17 crews arrive in October 1943, one of them being Lt. Robert Rosenthal. Bremen is bombed once more by the 100th. Major Egan, suffering from combat fatigue, is transferred to London on leave, where he spends one night with a Polish war widow. Egan reports early for duty after learning that Major Cleven did not return from Bremen. Sgt. Quinn is being led by Belgian resistance smugglers in the meantime. Along with Bob, an American airman who is murdered after being revealed to be a German infiltration, he also encounters two other airmen. On their trip to Spain, Quinn and the others take a train to German-occupied Paris.

After suffering significant casualties on the Bremen mission, the 100th returns. Lt. Crosby gets promoted and takes over as the primary navigator from Captain Payne. Only a few days after the Bremen operation, Major Egan launches another bombing attack into Münster. The 100th’s mission ends tragically as they are caught by waves of fighters. Lt. Rosenthal’s B-17 is shot down, along with all the others. Major Egan jumps out of his downed aircraft and lands by himself in the Westphalia region of Germany.

Reminiscent of the Russelsheim massacre in August 1944, Major Egan is taken prisoner in October 1943 and nearly perishes after he and other downed pilots are ambushed by townspeople while being marched through a devastated town. After being brought to Dulag Luft for questioning, he is sent to Stalag Luft III. There, he runs into Cleven and other 100th buddies. Rosenthal pushes back when Lt. Rosenthal and his team are taken to a rural house for rest and therapy. While attending a symposium at Oxford University, Captain Crosby befriends a British ATS officer before she is abruptly summoned away.

During a mission over Berlin in March 1944, the 100th loses fifteen B-17s and one hundred fifty soldiers. When P-51 Mustang fighter squadrons surround the bombers, their subsequent strike turns out to be more effective. When they find out that a crew must now complete twenty-eight missions in order to be released, they get unhappy. After completing his twenty-fifth mission, Captain Rosenthal makes the decision to reenlist. Rosenthal is given command of the 350th after learning that General Doolittle intends to use the B-17 crews as bait to entice the Luftwaffe into the skies to confront the P-51s. Captain Crosby starts dating Wesgate, an ATS officer. After returning to base, Sgt. Quinn is granted immunity from all subsequent missions because he is aware of the escape routes. Major Cleven and other prisoners of war construct a crystal radio in Stalag Luft III so they may listen to the BBC news. When many British inmates manage to break free, Cleven, Egan, and the other American officials are told that if there are any more attempts at escape, the SS and Gestapo would take control of the camp.

As part of Operation Overlord preparations, Captain Crosby plans 200 bombing flights against Wehrmacht locations in France in June 1944. He works for three days in a row before collapsing and sleeping through D-Day. The Luftwaffe is essentially not resisting. Following their downing while assaulting German forces on the Côte d’Azur during Operation Dragoon, 2nd lieutenants Richard Macon, Robert Daniels, and Alexander Jefferson are sent to Stalag Luft III, which is now governed by the SS. Cleven invites them to assist in getting ready for a possible breakout now that the Red Army is getting closer.

Major Rosenthal gets shot down in February 1945 while flying over Berlin; he parachutes into no man’s land and is saved by the Red Army. The captives are made to march through subfreezing temperatures while the Germans depart Stalag Luft III. After being transported by train to Nuremberg, they are imprisoned at Stalag XIII. Majors Cleven and Egan attempt to flee as they are once more made to march, but only Cleven is successful. Cleven meets US Army troops after surviving an attack by Volkssturm kids. After being sent to Stalag VII, Egan and the other inmates are shortly released. Major Rosenthal observes remnants of the former Jewish captives as well as dead bodies as he approaches the Żabikowo prison camp near Poznań, which took the position of Fort VII. Rosenthal converses in Yiddish with a guy who lost his family during the Holocaust not long after. Reunited at Thorpe Abbotts, Majors Cleven, Egan, Rosenthal, and Crosby take part in Operations Manna and Chowhound, providing food to the Dutch populace affected by Hongerwinter. The 100th leaves for home after the German capitulation. A montage detailing the main protagonists’ future lives concludes the show.

Review

Ninety-eight critics have left good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of eight out of ten. The verdict on the website is: “Soaring high with its immaculate production design and acutely well-observed characters, Masters of the Air can stand proud alongside its sibling series Band of Brothers and The Pacific. The series received “generally favourable reviews” from Metacritic, which based its weighted average score of 72 out of 100 on 41 critics.

Rebecca Nicholson, a writer for The Guardian, rated the show five stars, calling it “truly fantastic television” and characterizing the pilots’ experience as “as thrilling as it is terrible”. Emily Baker, on the other hand, gave the show a two out of five rating in the I and called it “the first big TV disappointment of 2024”. Baker says the show is “too old-fashioned to compete with today’s prestige TV” and faults the shallow characterisation, plots, and predictable and “formulaic” drama. The program is criticized by The Daily Telegraph, which claims that it “sacrificed authenticity for Hollywood clichés. Empire noted that all of this is done with “a certain strain of American exceptionalism,” portraying non-Americans as clichés, British people as “invariably stiff-upper-lipped,” and the RAF as receiving “only a passing mention.

The show has drawn criticism for being inaccurate, leaving out significant details and altering the real tale of the 100th. It was also noted that there was no strategic narrative: “the narrow emphasis on strategy missed the chance to contextualize the characters’ experiences.

The Bloody Hundredth, a companion documentary featuring Tom Hanks as the narrator, chronicles the history of the 100th Bomb Group, which served as the inspiration for the stories in Masters of the Air. It was made available on Apple TV+ on March 15, 2024.