‘Masters of the Air’ Boss John Orloff Compares Austin Butler and Callum Turner’s Characters to ‘Top Gun’: ‘They Were Maverick Before Maverick Existed’
variety.comK.J. Yossman “Masters of the Air” soared to become Apple TV+’s highest-watched series launch ever when the first episodes dropped in January.
While it might seem like a no-brainer that the team behind “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” — including Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and John Orloff — would hit it out of the park with a new World War II series, it wasn’t plain sailing, in large part thanks to COVID, which resulted in numerous delays. “It made the production very difficult,” Goetzman told Variety ahead of the series launch.
But also, in keeping with Apple TV+’s low-key publicity strategy, “Masters of the Air” somehow debuted on the streamer with minimal publicity, despite the fact that in the period between being pre- and post-production its key cast, including Austin Butler, Callum Turner, Barry Keoghan and Ncuti Gatwa had been propelled from jobbing actors to leading men.
Adding to its challenges, the show is not an easy watch, from its depiction of the anguish of losing beloved characters to the moral dilemmas posed by the story — and, of course, the mental workout of simply keeping up with such a vast and changing cast.
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