Produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Steven Spielberg, "The Pacific" is a 2010 production that serves as a companion piece to "Band of Brothers" set in the Pacific theater. Much like "Band of Brothers," it would become the most costly television series ever produced at the time of its release for many of the same reasons. As production began, the budget for the limited series was originally set at $120 million, but by the time the show aired, HBO had spent around $217 million on it.
According to co-executive producer Tony To, the commitment to realistically filming battle scenes was tremendous (via Reuters). Take the landing at Peleliu, which took four days to film and came in under budget at around $5 million. The scene featured upwards of 300 actors, each of whom was clad in perfectly duplicated 1940s military uniforms, faithfully replicated on period looms. On top of the costs of working with a large cast, producers had to factor in pricey practical effects, props, and pyrotechnics, with production costs coming in at around $270,000 per filming day. Fortunately, producers were able to cash in on some serious rebates by filming in Australia, slashing the cost by about $20 million from what it could have been, and some of the processes had become streamlined in the decade following "Band of Brothers" thanks to advances in technology.
