WWI aviation movies

Any whisperings in the wind about Hollywood (or elsewhere) developing any WWI aviation movies? It's been a while since the last one, (_The Blue Max?_ _The Great Waldo Pepper?_[postwar]) and I'm getting sick of rewinding the biplane crash in _The English Patient_ to get my fix. I think FX have come to the point where a biplane dogfight can be done with proper elan.

Thinking of the audience excitement over the climax of _Top Gun_ and continual gaga over space battles a la _Star Wars_, it occurs to me that these jet-age to space-age extravaganzas don't really reflect a supersonic/deepspace sensibility. Cinematically, these films try to create the up-close-and-personal, mano-a-mano confrontations that just don't happen at Mach II or in the vacuum of space.

The spirit they are trying to capture is that of the dogfight. And nowhere is that spirit more prevalent than in WWI aviation.

Wailing through the sky (or space) trying to get a missile lock on a streaking speck doesn't capture the personal confrontation of a WWI dogfight.

Step down out of your million-dollar plane, fly-boy. Let's go back to canvas and wire, when human flight was barely born, jump in a kite, strap a machine gun to it, go up and see who's the hawk, who's the dove. This is a real turning battle, open to the air, close enough to see, if not smell the fear-sweat of your adversary. No armor. No parachutes. No radar, so if you're not watching your six, that's where I am. You can't even radio for help...

Oh. And let's shoot it on IMAX.

Anybody want to reserve tickets?

RayK

p.s. I remember someone mentioning a Frank Luke project in development. Pity Hollywood, USA won't look further than it's loyal subjects, but at this point of WWI-flick drought, anything's welcome.

To be fair, in Candada we have our networks (CTV) buy out story ideas (Bishop's _Courage Of The Early Morning_) and sit on them for decades like roosters trying to hatch eggs. If we do put WWI aviation on film, it's a "docu-drama" made with taxpayers money, aimed at villifying a national hero (discuss _The Kid Who Couldn't Miss_ with Al Lowe or myself off-forum -- there's not enough space here...)