Filmmaker Peter Jackson to remake "Dam Busters"

Peter Jackson arrives at the 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, January 16, 2006. Jackson will remake 'The Dam Busters,' a classic British war film about a Royal Air Force mission to cripple the German steel industry, Universal Pictures said on Thursday. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

LOS ANGELES - "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson will remake "The Dam Busters," a classic British war film about a Royal Air Force mission to cripple the German steel industry, Universal Pictures said on Thursday.

Jackson will produce the film to be called "Dambusters." It will be directed by Christian Rivers who won a 2006 Academy Award for his animation work on Jackson's version of "King Kong."

Widely considered one of the most daring missions in aerial military history, "Dambusters" follows Operation Chastise, a top-secret RAF mission which aimed to destroy three dams that were key to the Nazi steel industry.

"This is one of the most remarkable true stories to come out of World War Two," Jackson said in statement, adding that many details of the dam raids were still a closely guarded secret when the first film was made in 1954.

"It has since been declassified by the British government, making the dynamics of the story even more intriguing."

Jackson said he planned to use state-of-the-art computer generated visual effects to give new life to the adventures of the 617 Squadron, a specially chosen group of pilots from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

These pilots were sent on a mission in 1943 to fly deep into well-armed Germany to destroy the dams.

The revolutionary "bouncing" bomb they were to use had to be dropped from very close range at low altitude. The airmen were trained for the single, specific mission, and the potential for success was small.

Universal Pictures, which is part of General Electric Co. controlled NBC Universal, is making the film in association with Studiocanal, which is part of French media company Vivendi's Canal + Group.