Peter Jackson has promised that his remake of The Dam Busters will tell the “real story” of the feted Second World War operation.
The Lord of the Rings director will revisit the classic 1955 film, which brought to screen Operation Chastise, a mission in which the RAF launched an attack on German dams in 1943.
“It’s just a great story, it’s always been a great story. But it’s an even greater story now than it was in 1955 because, back then, there was still so much of the story that was under the Official Secrets Act,” Jackson told The Telegraph. “They couldn’t show the bomb spinning, because the fact that they applied backspin to the bomb to make it jump on the water was still a state secret.”
He also said his version will be less “romanticised”, adding: “The real story is so much more interesting. It’s a story of politics, of ingenuity and peril, and it’s also a story about trying to do something that cost an awful lot of money.”
“You had to apply to the government to fund it – because it was a very expensive thing to build, and very expensive to prep the squadrons and fly these planes – and then to get it through a very bureaucratic system. And that’s as much of an interesting story as the actual raid itself.”
Jackson was originally due to start work on the project in 2009, but it has been repeatedly delayed. However, the director promised production will start soon as he only has the rights for The Dam Busters for “another year or two”.
The New Zealand director recently received critical acclaim for his documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, which featured restored and colourised footage of soldiers on the First World War front line, paired with audio retrieved from more than 600 hours of BBC interviews.
He also produced and co-wrote the fantasy film Mortal Engines, adapted from the book by Philip Reeve, which is set for release next month.
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