Genre: | Historical Drama Docudrama |
Director: | John Ealer |
Narrated: | Jeremy Renner |
Theme Music Composer: | The 13 Brotherhood |
Country: | United States |
Language: | English |
Num Episodes: | 3 |
Producer: | Stephen David Russ McCarroll Paul Cabana Elaine Frontain Bryant Christian Murphy Brian Burstein David C. White Tim W. Kelly Randy Counsman |
Editor: | Tim W. Kelly Jonathan Soule |
Cinematography: | Roger Chingirian |
Company: | Stephen David Entertainment |
Budget: | was |
Network: | History H2 |
The World Wars is a three-part, six-hour event miniseries by the History Channel that premiered on Monday, May 26, 2014, (Memorial Day) airing for three consecutive nights. An extended version of the series, divided into six episodes with never before seen footage, was subsequently broadcast on H2 and in more than 160 countries on June 22, 2014.[1]
Narrated by Jeremy Renner,[2] the documentary series features a mix of dramatic reenactments, archival stills and footage, and interviews with historians and authors alongside current and former prominent political figures such as former U.S. Senator John McCain from Arizona, former U.S. General and Secretary of State Colin Powell, former British prime minister John Major, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband and many more.[1] [3]
The show was produced for History Channel by Stephen David Entertainment, the production company behind the Emmy Award-winning miniseries The Men Who Built America.[4] [5] A portion of the filming took place in and around Martinsburg, West Virginia in the United States during October and November 2013.[6] The series was introduced by United States President Barack Obama in a pre-recorded message.[7]
According to the History Channel, the miniseries "showcase(s) the thirty year period that changed the course of human history", documenting both World Wars and the interwar era in a continuous timeline from 1914 to 1945. The series takes a personality-driven approach, focusing on some of the key players of World War II (Hitler, Mussolini, Patton, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt), and chronicling how their experiences as younger men in the First World War shaped them into the leaders they became in World War II.[8]
Tagline:
The series features two actors for each of the main characters, one young (during WWI) and one older (during World War II and its lead-up).[9]
The following people appear as talking head experts throughout the series.
Politicians/Military Figures:
Historians/Authors:
During the expanded re-airings during June, instead of three episodes, the series was split into six episodes.
"Trial by Fire" and "Never Surrender", episodes 1 and 5 of the expanded six-part series, use the same names as episodes 1 and 3 of the original three part series with two hour episodes.
On September 9, 2014, the miniseries was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats. The two-disc includes English subtitles and bonus material, such as deleted scenes of over an hour of footage cut from the original U.S. broadcast; "Characters In Depth" of Churchill, Stalin, Truman, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Hitler; and 10 featurettes on both wars. UltraViolet digital copies of each episode were also included.[10]