The word is, Australian filmmaker Anthony Maras is working on a new WW2 movie titled Pressure, which focuses on the go/no-go decision that Gen Eisenhower had to make on the eve of D-Day and the role that meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg played in that famous decision.

Brendan Fraser is reported to be cast as Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Andrew Scott is expected to play Group Captain James Stagg.

This is a well-known moment in military history, covered by many historians, covered by the British Met Office itself, and featured in the seminal movie The Longest Day (1969). It is also covered in detail in the PBS documentary Three Days in June: The story of the D-Day Forecast*, which also places emphasis on the importance of the barometric readings taken by 21-yr-old Maureen Sweeney at Blacksod weather station on the west coast of Ireland and used by Stagg to predict the weather window on 6 June.

The official movie synopsis reads: “In the seventy two hours leading up to D-Day, all the pieces are in place except for one key element—the British weather. Britain’s chief meteorological officer James Stagg (Scott) is called upon to deliver the most consequential forecast in history, locking him into a tense standoff with the entire Allied leadership. The wrong conditions could devastate the largest ever seaborne invasion, while any delay risks German intelligence catching on. With only his trusted aide Captain Kay Summersby to confide in, and haunted by a catastrophic D-Day rehearsal, the final decision rests with Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. With only hours to go, the fate of the war and the lives of millions hang in the balance.”

Filming is expected to start in Sep 2024 in the UK. It is not known if the site of Eisenhower’s decision, Southwick House, will feature in the movie.

(Image: Graham Smith Resized CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

* The documentary is supposedly available on a number of streaming services including AppleTV+, BBC, and Amazon Prime but it doesn’t seem to be at the moment. It also comes around on PBS from time to time.