Just a shame about latest on the Dambuster remake movie which still seems to be in limbo..
Sir Peter Jackson's Dam Busters film fails to take off
Unlike the brave men of Bomber Command who hit those dams so accurately over 70 years ago in Germany, the producer who wants to remake the famous film about the raid keeps on missing his target.
Sir Peter Jackson refuses to say when his new version of The Dam Busters, with a script written by Stephen Fry, will be made. Indeed he professes to becoming increasingly "irritated" when people ask him about it now, even though he has held the rights for five years.
He has already missed the 70th anniversary of the daring mission and is set to miss the 60th anniversary of the original 1955 film.
Those few remaining veterans of the Dam Busters raids want to see the film made while they are still around to view it, declares Jim Dooley, chairman of fundraising for the Bomber Command Association.
"The time to make this film is right now; we are waiting with baited breath," he says. "These chaps might not be with us for much longer, and we were hoping for a big opening night to boost funds needed to maintain the new Bomber Command memorial in London."
But Jackson, whose third Hobbit film has just been released, is dismissive of enquiries about his plans.
"We still have the rights," he declares. "There is only a limited span I can abide of people driving me nuts asking me when I'm going to do this project.
"So I'll have to do it. I want to, actually, it's one of the truly great true stories of the Second World War."
Jackson already has 10 replica Lancaster bombers built in his native New Zealand, along with a scale model of the Möhne Dam, one of the three attacked in the RAF's night-time attack on the Ruhr Valley which dealt a severe blow to the Nazis in 1943.
However he has yet to decide who will play the principal characters such as Wing Commander Guy Gibson (played by Richard Todd in the 1955 film).
Says one source on the production: "He wants a young cast, to reflect the youth of the 133 aircrew; Guy Gibson was only 24. He may go for unknowns, although various big names have been bandied around, such as Colin Firth playing Barnes Wallis and Tom Hollander for Gibson."
Trevor Poots, of Paradyne Productions, the late Sir David Frost's film company that bought the rights to remake the film in 2006, says wearily: "At the moment I simply don't know what Peter Jackson's plans are with regard to Dam Busters."
Hopefully Britain's last surviving Dam buster, bomb aimer George 'Johnny' Johnson, 94, will be around to see the remake. His son Morgan Johnson tells me: "My father says that if Jackson's production is more accurate than the original he will be a happy man, because that film was riddled with mistakes.
"He was always disappointed that the original did not feature the raid on the Sorpe dam, which his Lancaster was one of only two to reach."
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