Austin Butler Helps Lead a Group of Airmen Through World War II in First “Masters of the Air” Trailer
"We're gonna sit here and take it. We're gonna stick with out mission as long as we can fly," Butler says through gritted teeth as bombs wiz past his aircraft
Austin Butler isn't going down without a fight in the first trailer for Apple TV+'s Masters of the Air.
The teaser begins with Butler — who takes on the role of Major Gale Cleven a.k.a. Buck — saying goodbye to a romantic flame as he readies himself for war.
"So you'll write me?" she asks to which he responds, "A girl worth writing to is hard to find." A shot of the fighter pilot clutching her photograph flashes on screen before he vows, "I'm gonna miss you every second."
While true love is put on hold, another relationship blossoms. Major John Egan (Callum Turner) recalls being one of the first pilots to be "assigned to the 100th" alongside Buck. Responsible for "35 planes and 350 air crew men," the trailer teases the tight knit bond the soldiers form in face of adversity.
"Don't you die on me before I get over there," Buck playfully threatens as Egan smiles.
Following suspicions that "something big is brewing," a commander announces, "the eighth will be sending up the largest air armada ever assembled in the history of mankind" to dive "straight into Hitler's territory."
As scenes of planes flying into smoke filled skies fill the screen, their new "mission" is to get "complete and total air superiority."
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Tragedy quickly strikes when planes are hit and missiles are deployed.
"I'm hit! I'm hit!" someone cries as another confirms the scene. "Three's going down!"
After losing his men, Buck sit alone and looks around to where his men would have stood only to find a bloody helmet. "What's the move?" Egan's voice asks and Buck responds, "We lead our boys through it."
When the trailer transitions to scenes of starving people and German soldiers transporting Jewish masses to concentration camps, Roy Frank Claytor (Sawyer Spielberg) recites, "We're here to fight the monsters. The things these people are capable of, they got it coming."
The teaser moves to find Buck and Egan in a precarious situation. One of their engines get hit and Egan says, "I think we may be done." Buck, however, isn't going down without a fight.
"We're gonna sit here and take it," he exclaims. "We're gonna stick with out mission as long as we can fly."
According to the show’s official synopsis, the historical drama follows the “men of the 100th Bomb Group,” also known as the “Bloody Hundredth” as they perform “perilous bombing raids” over Nazi Germany during World War II. The men face terrible conditions, including frigid temperatures and lack of oxygen, and the "sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air."
The series, which is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, portrays the “psychological and emotional price paid by these young men as they helped destroy the horror of Hitler’s Third Reich.”
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Shot in locations ranging from the idyllic rolling hills of southeast England to the “harsh deprivations of a German Prisoner of War Camp,” many soldiers were shot down, captured, wounded, and “some were lucky enough to make it home.”
Alongside Spielberg and Hanks, Gary Goetzman will executive produce the series and include a star-studded cast led by Butler, Turner, Boyle, Nate Mann, Rafferty Law, Barry Keoghan, Josiah Cross, Branden Cook and Ncuti Gatwa.
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Masters of the Air will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday, Jan. 26 with the first two episodes, followed by one new episode every week.
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