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Corps featured in several Hollywood projects

More than four years ago, then-Lt. Col. Mike Strobl shared his experience escorting a fallen Marine back to their mutual hometown, weaving a narrative rich with detail and emotion.

Those memories will live on in an HBO Films project that will be screened in January at the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the U.S., and premiered on the network in February.

Strobl’s story was developed into “Taking Chance,” with Kevin Bacon starring as the now-retired Marine officer. The film details Strobl’s trip from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to Dubois, Wyo., where Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, 19, was buried after being shot to death by Iraqi insurgents on April 9, 2004.

The film is just one of the places that Marines will show up on television and the big screen in 2009, officials with the Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison Office said.

HBO also is expected to debut “The Pacific,” a 10-hour miniseries focusing on the lives of three Marines who participated in the island-hopping campaign during World War II. Filmed in Australia, it is produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, the same team behind the 2001 Emmy-winning mini-series, “Band of Brothers,” which focused on soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division during World War II.

Marine officials said the Corps also provided some military equipment and vehicles for the movie “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” which is scheduled for release in June. It is the sequel to “Transformers,” a 2007 summer blockbuster hit. A sequel to “Iron Man,” which featured Marine characters, is scheduled for release in 2010.