The Battle of Midway

[Dave Homewood]

A year ago in August 2010 it was reported that Warner Brothers commissioned writer Bruce McKenna, famous for his part in writing the scripts for Band of Brothers and The Pacific, to deliver a script for a 3-D film called The Battle of Midway.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=28781

All seems to have gone quiet on this exciting project. Does anyone have any news? Is it going ahead?

[The Inspector]

What are they going to do this time? Use outtakes from "Pearl Harbor" and have Eric Estrada play Halsey since he's too old to be a fighter pilot this time

[Dave Homewood]

I'm hoping they will make a really top quality film in the tradition of McKenna's previous works. And hopefully nothing like that trashy low budget, poorly scripted and acted 1976 film.

[Rob Mears]

The thing is, a producer/director team with the right sensabilities could really capture the action in a realistic way (i.e. Band of Brothers) and deliver a kick ass film to the public without having to resort to the campy, sensory overload, unrealistic action sequences seen in Pearl Harbor, Red Tails, etc.

I want the producers to relay a true sense of what men were feeling as the anti-aircraft guns were blasting, and as real adrenaline and fear were coursing through the men who were fighting on both sides. The individual human experience in battle is what is at the core of all great combat movies. Here's hoping that the overcompressed "Transformers" style action sequence is on the way out the door in favor of productions that focus more intently on factually representing the vicereal reality of combat. Listen to the emotional recollections of air and ground combat veterans and use that to move me. Throwing fifteen aircraft into some cartoonish air-to-air hairball just doesn't do it for me anymore.

[Mudge]

I think we'd all like to see a more realistic representation of battles. Realism, however, means just that. Real a/c. Real equipment. Real ships. Ain't gonna' happen for the same reason that CGI has been used so much in the last few years. The stuff to do that "realism" just ain't there anymore. And the people who own the stuff that is still around, (ie. WWII a/c), aren’t gonna’ let their “toys” be used.
And a film with voice overs by the real vets is not going to get people into the theaters. HBO, the military channels, the History channel, yes. But not theaters.
Sorry to say, we’d better get used to it. CGI is all we’re gonna’ get from now on.

Mudge the

[Russ Matthews]

Discussed at length in this thread from last year ...

http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=37559

... but, I've heard nothing new recently.