Tom Hanks returns to D-Day beach with new TV drama
$120 million HBO series also produced by Steven Spielberg

Utah Beach, France — Tom Hanks, inspired by his role in the award-winning film Saving Private Ryan, unveiled a new World War Two epic Wednesday on the 57th anniversary of the allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

Standing on the beach where U.S. soldiers first stormed ashore, the actor said he hoped the $120 million television series Band of Brothers would bring the fight against fascism to life for youngsters with little knowledge of the conflict.

"As filmmakers, we hope to entertain those in search of a good story, educate those who are unaware of their own history," said Hanks, who was executive producer of the 10-episode drama alongside Private Ryan director Steven Spielberg.

Band of Brothers traces the true-life tale of Easy Company, a small unit of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, which took part in the D-Day invasion and then fought its way across Europe to capture Hitler's mountain retreat, Eagle's Nest.

Forty-seven of the surviving 51 veterans of Easy Company, some in wheelchairs, one with one leg, crossed the Atlantic for a screening of parts of some episodes in a massive tent erected for the occasion beside wind-swept Utah beach.

"There is no more appropriate place to honor the heroism of the men of the 101st than by premiering their story at Utah Beach, June 6th," said Jeff Bewkes, head of U.S. pay-TV group Home Box Office (HBO), which financed the ambitious project.

The screening came on the same day that another U.S. World War Two epic, the heavily-hyped Pearl Harbor, opened in France.

A love story set against the backdrop of the 1941 Japanese attack on a U.S. naval base, Pearl Harbor has dominated the U.S. box office since its release on May 25, underlining a burgeoning interest in the United States for World War Two.

HISTORY FIT FOR THE SCREEN

The directors of Band of Brothers had to take some liberties to transpose factual episodes to the screen, but they were at pains to make the series as true to life as possible, Hanks said.

"We know we have often forgotten detail, modified history, altered geography ... we have made history fit on the screen," a dark-suited Hanks said during a memorial service held before the screening.

After the success in 1998 of Saving Private Ryan, Hanks and Spielberg return to the subject of the 1944 allied landings with Band of Brothers, which is being touted as the most expensive television mini-series ever.

In a change of role, Hanks had only a walk-on part in the series, but he directed the fifth episode, while his son Colin played a small role in the eighth.

Spielberg, who won an Oscar as best director for Private Ryan, was unable to attend the Utah Beach premiere of Band of Brothers because he was in Los Angeles working on his forthcoming film Minority Report, which stars Tom Cruise.

Band of Brothers chronicles a unit that took 150 percent casualties and came to symbolise American heroism.

"Even though it is about a mythic time, and even though it can be relegated to the heap of common folk tales of great victories, I still see in it stories — on both sides of the coin — of the ongoing human dilemma," Hanks told reporters.

ADAPTED FROM AMBROSE BOOK

The series is adapted from a best-selling book by Stephen Ambrose, drawn from hours of interviews with survivors of Easy Company, as well as soldiers' letters and journals.

Filmed in Britain last year over eight intensive months, Band of Brothers features some 500 speaking parts, employed 10,000 extras and was put together by eight directors.

HBO spared no expense when it came to special effects.

By the third episode of shooting, more pyrotechnics had been used than in the whole of Saving Private Ryan, while more than 130 tonnes (300,000lb) of paper were used to create snow for a single forest set — a record, HBO say.

The production managed to save money by shunning stars.

With the exception of Friends favorite David Schwimmer, the cast consists of virtual unknowns, but HBO insists that this was an artistic rather than financial decision.

The series will be broadcast in the United States from September 9 and will play on European television in the weeks and months that follow.