Michael Mann and Michael De Luca have acquired rights to Hue 1968, and they will shape as an event 8-to 10 hour miniseries Mark Bowdens kaleidoscopic account of the Tet Offensive that became the turning point of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Bowdens books have been catnip for Hollywood and his Black Hawk Down was turned into the memorable Ridley Scott-directed 2001 thriller. Bowden worked five years on Hue 1968, which will be published June 6 by Grove Atlantic. Mann plans to direct numerous episodes of the mini and will produce with De Luca.
Hue, the cultural and historical capital city, was the centerpiece of Hanois 1968 Tet Offensive, a surprise attack by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong that sought to win the war in one stroke. Part military action and popular uprising, NVA infantry crossed mountains, undetected, with smuggled weapons waiting for them. This set the stage for a surprise attack that overran the city except for two small military outposts. Bowdens book creates a tapestry that builds toward one of the bloodiest conflicts of that war, with characters that include a seemingly innocent schoolgirl on a bike, whose heart had hardened her into a revolutionary after her sister was executed and led her to help smuggle weapons; there is a radio operator named Jim Coolican, a Marine captain from Pennsylvania, who dreamed of returning to the family farm in the last days of service, but who also immersed himself in the local culture and language, and tried in vain to convince his superiors that Hue had been over run by conventional infantry, something not thought possible (Coolican would distinguish himself in the battle); to President Lyndon Johnson in his pajamas in the White House with General Westmoreland, a sleepover guest whose rosy view of progress in the Vietnam War shortly after became the subject of controversy with the leak of the Pentagon Papers. The miniseries will follow Bowdens narrative structure that humanizes the characters and makes understandable why bloody events unfolded the way they did and made clear that Vietnam was an unwinnable war for the U.S.