New B17 film "Fortress"

[McQ59]

It flyes and it shoots. Good enough for me... Cheers dk

[CrashLanding]

Originally Posted by Robotic Pope

Two rather damning reviews on the IMDB site.

Not really surprising. I could tell the acting was bad just from watching the trailer.

[gldr327]

Good Afternoon Folks,

My name is Mike Phillips ,I’m the Director and one of the Producers on Fortress. The film was a labor of love that took 4 men 3 years to make. We are the same guys that did the show Dogfights on the history channel (until we got canceled for such historical programing as pawn stars and deadliest road truckers). The film cost us under a $500k to make (regardless of what’s listed on IMDB) and we raised the money ourselves from personal savings and family.

We are aerial enthusiast(hell were aerial wack jobs) and like someone said earlier it’s been 22 years since the last ww2 b-17 movie and if you know anything about the actual Memphis Bell story that movie was a farce.(but Billy Zane did still have hair so that’s a plus)
As much as we love being compared to Red Tails they had $60 million and we had…well…less. All we will claim is most of the events we portrayed in our movie actually happened as we showed them.(including the b-17 doing a loop) We based them on personal interviews we carried out for dogfights, or on official US government after action reports . The scenes on the ground are a combination of personal anecdotes from vets. I’m not saying there is not some typical Hollywood crap in our movie..,There is. let’s face it if we made this movie 100% historically accurate it would be a loooong boring movie where nothing happens, and trying to find a norden bombsite in 2012?

Since we are not a major film company it did take us forever to raise the funds to finish the film and even more time to get it distributed, but Fortress has finally released in the UK, it releases in Germany in May and the rest of the world in June and finally in the US in July.

We welcome everyone’s opinion on our film good or bad we just hope and beg that before you judge us too harshly you take the time to actually watch our final product before passing judgment. (not the unreleased rough cut that was pirated and is missing 20 mins of story and another action scene) We are not claiming Fortress is a work of art,far from it(we are not the first two god father movies or Laurence of Arabia)

We respect everyone’s right to their opinions and love Fortress or hate it we at least got off our butt's and made the best product we could with what resources we had and we do hope that we were able to bring some level of realism that we hope will entertain the majority of you(and no Ben Affleck)

I realize this has been a long post and I thank you all for taking the time to read it and for allowing me the opportunity to post.

[flynlion]

As you say, money is tight nowadays. Why should I spend my hard earned cash to see yet another cartoon about a Hollywood football team?

[haitch40]

Originally Posted by gldr327

Good Afternoon Folks,

My name is Mike Phillips ,I’m the Director and one of the Producers on Fortress. The film was a labor of love that took 4 men 3 years to make. We are the same guys that did the show Dogfights on the history channel (until we got canceled for such historical programing as pawn stars and deadliest road truckers). The film cost us under a $500k to make (regardless of what’s listed on IMDB) and we raised the money ourselves from personal savings and family.

We are aerial enthusiast(hell were aerial wack jobs) and like someone said earlier it’s been 22 years since the last ww2 b-17 movie and if you know anything about the actual Memphis Bell story that movie was a farce.(but Billy Zane did still have hair so that’s a plus)
As much as we love being compared to Red Tails they had $60 million and we had…well…less. All we will claim is most of the events we portrayed in our movie actually happened as we showed them.(including the b-17 doing a loop) We based them on personal interviews we carried out for dogfights, or on official US government after action reports . The scenes on the ground are a combination of personal anecdotes from vets. I’m not saying there is not some typical Hollywood crap in our movie..,There is. let’s face it if we made this movie 100% historically accurate it would be a loooong boring movie where nothing happens, and trying to find a norden bombsite in 2012?

Since we are not a major film company it did take us forever to raise the funds to finish the film and even more time to get it distributed, but Fortress has finally released in the UK, it releases in Germany in May and the rest of the world in June and finally in the US in July.

We welcome everyone’s opinion on our film good or bad we just hope and beg that before you judge us too harshly you take the time to actually watch our final product before passing judgment. (not the unreleased rough cut that was pirated and is missing 20 mins of story and another action scene) We are not claiming Fortress is a work of art,far from it(we are not the first two god father movies or Laurence of Arabia)

We respect everyone’s right to their opinions and love Fortress or hate it we at least got off our butt's and made the best product we could with what resources we had and we do hope that we were able to bring some level of realism that we hope will entertain the majority of you(and no Ben Affleck)

I realize this has been a long post and I thank you all for taking the time to read it and for allowing me the opportunity to post.

Try here as well when gaijin fix the site http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php...irds-of-steel/

You guys made dogfights? I really miss that show now its gone.

[dkwookie]

Originally Posted by gldr327

Good Afternoon Folks,

My name is Mike Phillips ,I’m the Director and one of the Producers on Fortress. The film was a labor of love that took 4 men 3 years to make. We are the same guys that did the show Dogfights on the history channel (until we got canceled for such historical programing as pawn stars and deadliest road truckers). The film cost us under a $500k to make (regardless of what’s listed on IMDB) and we raised the money ourselves from personal savings and family.

We are aerial enthusiast(hell were aerial wack jobs) and like someone said earlier it’s been 22 years since the last ww2 b-17 movie and if you know anything about the actual Memphis Bell story that movie was a farce.(but Billy Zane did still have hair so that’s a plus)
As much as we love being compared to Red Tails they had $60 million and we had…well…less. All we will claim is most of the events we portrayed in our movie actually happened as we showed them.(including the b-17 doing a loop) We based them on personal interviews we carried out for dogfights, or on official US government after action reports . The scenes on the ground are a combination of personal anecdotes from vets. I’m not saying there is not some typical Hollywood crap in our movie..,There is. let’s face it if we made this movie 100% historically accurate it would be a loooong boring movie where nothing happens, and trying to find a norden bombsite in 2012?

Since we are not a major film company it did take us forever to raise the funds to finish the film and even more time to get it distributed, but Fortress has finally released in the UK, it releases in Germany in May and the rest of the world in June and finally in the US in July.

We welcome everyone’s opinion on our film good or bad we just hope and beg that before you judge us too harshly you take the time to actually watch our final product before passing judgment. (not the unreleased rough cut that was pirated and is missing 20 mins of story and another action scene) We are not claiming Fortress is a work of art,far from it(we are not the first two god father movies or Laurence of Arabia)

We respect everyone’s right to their opinions and love Fortress or hate it we at least got off our butt's and made the best product we could with what resources we had and we do hope that we were able to bring some level of realism that we hope will entertain the majority of you(and no Ben Affleck)

I realize this has been a long post and I thank you all for taking the time to read it and for allowing me the opportunity to post.

Hi Mike, thanks for popping in and commenting. I still haven't seen Fortress yet but looking forward to catching it soon. Hope it turns out successful for you guys. Good to see small indepent film makers getting their film out there, especially a niche market for us WW2 air nuts

[House MD 221B]

Thanks for posting, having seen Red Tails and personally finding it a disgraceful, disrespectful pile of fiction. (If anyone wants to learn anything about this topic watch HBO's Tuskegee Airmen. It's infinitely better.)

Whereas this film looks fantastic and I shall hunt out a way to see it. When is it released in the UK and will it be in mainstream cinemas?

Comparing this film to Red Tails seems like an insult to this film. Can't wait to see it.

Kudos for caring about the history you've written and produced, George Lucas should be ashamed of himself! (imho)

[mavrickandgoose]

I watched fortress a few months ago it's a decent move for being low budget I liked it

[displayorder]

Is it me or does the CGI look better in that than in the Red Tails trailers?