Apple TV+ is less than a month away from launching with the company’s first original shows. However, Apple doesn’t own any of that content but that’s set to change moving forward. Apple is launching its in-house studio as it gets set to produce a new WWII drama called Masters of the Air, a follow-up to HBO’s popular Band of Brothers and The Pacific.

Reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Apple is launching its own in-house studio to create original content. Masters of the Air will be the first series to come from the Apple-owned studio.

Apple’s Worldwide Video heads Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht will also oversee the studio in a move that brings them back to their roots as head of Sony Pictures TV.

As for the follow-up to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, Masters of the Air will follow along with those in the Eighth Air Force. Apple has made a nine-episode order for the new series.

Masters focuses the aerial wars through the eyes of enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force — known as the men of the Mighty Eighth — and who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. The drama arrives two decades after HBO won six Emmys (out of a whopping 19 nominations) for Band of Brothers and its 2010 sequel, The Pacific, which scored 24 noms and a leading eight wins.

A big win for Apple, the follow-up is set to be produced by the same big names like Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman.

All of the producers behind both Brothers and Pacific are slated to return for the new installment. Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Steven Spielberg will exec produce for Hanks and Goetzman’s Playtone and the latter’s Amblin Television, respectively. Amblin TV’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey will co-exec produce alongside Playtnoe’s Steven Shareshian.

THR notes that having its own studio to produce content and actually own Apple TV+ shows will be an important financial factor.

Producing its programming in-house will monetize Apple’s content and eliminate having to pay expensive licensing fees to such outside studios as Warner Bros. TV. Of all of Apple’s 20-plus shows already greenlit and in the works, the tech giant did not own a single one of them.

For more on Apple TV+, check out all of the trailers released so far ahead of the November 1st launch of the service.

Top image via HBO

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news: