AlthoughBand of Brothersrightly retains its own place in television history as arguably the greatest miniseries of all time, its follow-up,The Pacific,broke the show’s record in 2010. WhileBand of Brotherscost a whopping $125 million to make at the turn of the millennium,The Pacificwas almost twice as expensive to produce.
The two series are among the biggest-budget TV productions of all time, along with their 2024 sequel,Masters of the Air. If it’s difficult torank theBand of Brotherstrilogyon merit, given the incomparable quality of all three miniseries, then measuring them against one another in budgetary terms is a little easier.
Unlike its forerunners,Masters of the Airwas produced by Apple TV+, not HBO. As a result,The Pacific, which tells thetrue story of U.S. Marine Corps soldiersin the Second World War’s Pacific theater, still holds onto the record it set 15 years ago.
The Pacific Is HBO’s Most Expensive Show – Why It Cost So Much
The Scale & Scope Of The Show’s Battle Scenes Went Far Beyond What Was Anticipated
To this day,The Pacificis still the most expensive HBO show ever produced, having cost around $217 million to make (viaTHR). The show’s initialbudget compared favorably with the originalBand of Brothersseries, as it was set at $100m. In practice, this target proved to be a huge underestimate.
The production companies behind the miniseries anticipated that using fewer actors of note in its main cast would allow for a smaller outlay on screen performers overall. Things didn’t work out that way, however, asthe show’s plot features larger-scale battle sequences thanBand of Brothers, which necessitated the use of thousands of extras.
Masters of the Air(2024)
$250m
$217m
Band of Brothers(2001)
$125m
What’s more, these battle sequences wereinordinately expensive to shoot and editbecause of the locations, set designs, and CGI special effects they required. The three-minute Peleliu landing scene inThe Pacific’s fifth episode cost around $5 million to make .
As well as the eye-watering cost of combat scenes, thebespoke costumes which had to be made for the thousands of actorswho play U.S. and Japanese soldiersinThe Pacificalso added millions of dollars to the budget. The series ended up costing more than double the budget agreed upon during pre-production.
The Pacific Was Worth The Price
It Took Realism In The War Genre To New Heights
Nevertheless,the level of authenticity realized on such a grand scalebyThe Pacificmakes its enormous budget money well spent. The show aims even higher than the originalBand of Brothersin its ambitious attempt to recreate the Pacific theater of World War II, in more sweeping terms than its forerunner told the story of the legendary Easy Company.
For the most part, the series manages to realize its ambitions.The Pacificepisode “Okinawa” rivals the best ofBand of Brothers, and most of the show’s battle scenes actually outdo the 2001 original on the technical front.
Band of Brotherswill continue to be the benchmark for TV war dramas for the foreseeable future. ButThe Pacificis unfairly overlooked, and underrated compared to the miniseries which preceded it, and deserves far more credit than it gets for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in rendering real-life military battle sequences onscreen.
