The Great Raid: New World War II Movie

I went to see a movie tonight, and picked up one of those little coming soon papers that they leave out. One of the movies that I saw was called the Great Raid, and the plot blurb was this: Set in the Philippines in 1945, "The Great Raid" tells the true story of the 6th Ranger Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) who undertake a daring rescue mission against all odds. Traveling thirty miles behind enemy lines, the 6th Ranger Battalion aims to liberate over 500 American prisoners-of-war from the notorious Cabanatuan Japanese POW camp in the most audacious rescue ever.
Wait a second- that's almost the exact same plot as Hampton Side's outstanding book: Ghost Soldiers. So I look at IMDB, and... IT IS! It looks like it's a combination of two books, one called the Great Raid and the other, Ghost Soldiers. Apparently it's to be released this February.

Official Site: http://www.miramax.com/the_great_raid/

Cast:

Directed by
John Dahl

Writing credits (WGA)
William B. Breuer (book The Great Raid on Cabanatuan)


Hampton Sides (book Ghost Soldiers) (additional material)


Carlo Bernard (screenplay) &
Doug Miro (screenplay)


Cast (in credits order) complete, awaiting verification
Benjamin Bratt .... Lt. Colonel Mucci
James Franco .... Captain Prince
Robert Mammone .... Captain Fisher
Max Martini .... 1st Sgt. Sid "Top" Wojo
James Carpinello .... Cpl. Aliteri
Mark Consuelos .... Cpl. Guttierez
Craig McLachlan .... 2nd Lt. Riley
Freddie Joe Farnsworth .... 2nd Lt. Foley
Laird Macintosh .... 2nd Lt. O'Grady
Jeremy Callaghan .... Lt. Able
Scott McLean .... Lt. LeClaire
Paolo Montalban .... Sgt. Valera
Clayne Crawford .... PFC Aldrige
More at IMDB

There's a trailer coming soon, and I haven't seen a poster yet, although there are a couple of images of some soldiers floating around:

[image=http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2005/DEFGH/Great-Raid,The/images/main.jpg]

And Production images: http://home.iprimus.com.au/sparkler/tgr.htm


It looks like this movie has been in the works for a very long time, and that it was planned for a 2003 Fall release, then a 2004 January release, but it was bumped back to 2005, and I've seen December and February as release dates. Yahoo movies says February 15th, and I would bet that's the real date, because there's now a website for it.

I'm excited for this. Ghost Soldiers was probably the first book about WWII that I read that really got me hooked with history as a study, and the story is just amazing. I'm surprised that I haven't heard anything about it until yet. Who else has read the book?