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War of the Worlds Remake Already Shot Overseas
AlphaJoe writes "In regards to remaking War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg has apparently been beaten to the punch by an English rival, director Timothy Hines, as being reported by SF Crowsnest. Principal photography has already been completed, and a Spring 2005 release date is anticipated. The English version is staying true to the original story, which was set in the late 1800's, where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version. Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope."
http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm is a good article talking about the broadcast that... upset a few people.
Actually, the commonly-believed story that there was mass panic was really a newspaper-fueled fantasy. The number of people who actually were scared enough to go ape-shit was quite small. You can read more about the overhyped-hysteria here -- go down halfway on the page until you get to "Book Excerpts, by Prof. David L. Miller".
By the way, the rest of that page has a lot of interesting material on the War of the Worlds broadcast, if you are interested.
GMD
watch this
This is why more art source need to be in the public domain. English copyright laws are much better than American. Disney raids the public domain : Cinderella, Pinnochio, Pocahontas, Sleeping Beauty, etc. etc. Then moans and groans that copyright laws to be extended forever and ever.
The original WotW was a classic film, beloved by many (including me).
No, it wasn't. It was an atrocity.Why remake it? Why remake 2 versions?
Because the Pendragon one at least actually looks like it will be a good adaptation of the original story.In comparison, H.G. Wells died in 1946. If Wells had lived under current US copyright law (life+70), WotW would not be public domain until 2016.
I don't understand why we even bother making movies from books if we are going to change the stories completely.
Oh, come on! That's an easy one! Two words: name recognition. Making a movie is an expensive proposition and is always risky. By co-opting a well-known name and slapping it on their product, the studios already have a built-in market. They can save money on promotion and marketing as well. We saw this a few years ago when Tri-Star took the internationally-known brand-name of Godzilla and slapped it on the front of a movie in which the monster bore little to no resemblance to the real deal.
Never underestimate the power of a brand-name. Remember when we were kids and you just *had* to have Pac-Man on your home console? The fact that the home versions really, really sucked didn't matter all that much? Remember how you were more happy to have a 3rd-rate version of Pac-Man rather than a 1st-rate version of, say, Mousetrap or some other Pac-Man-like maze game? That's what I'm talking about here. So it is with movies as well.
GMD
watch this
There are some stills. But only of the actors. Nothing on how the war machines look yet. Or the thunderchild.
Should check out the Chrome trailer, pretty interesting.
That was George Pal's War of the Worlds, made in 1953. George Pal also made the other movie you mentioned, The Time Machine in 1960.
George Pal also made When Worlds Collide and several other big budget (for the time) science fiction films. He really was the Spielberg/Lucas of that time.
I think you're thinking of European copyright law..
In the US, anything published before 1923 is out of copyright. Some stuff published after 1923 but before 1968 or so may be out of copyright if it wasn't renewed on the due date... Project Gutenberg has loads of books that are out of copyright under the pre-1923 rule, that are still copyright in Europe (including most of H.G. Wells's books)
He also made Destination Moon, one of the first "realistic" science fiction movies, as well as When Worlds Collide. His earlier work included Puppetoons, three dimensional animation using puppets with replacable parts.
Here is a nice synopsis for you. Plus, he was apparently just a really nice guy.
Someone would have to acquire the rights from the copyright holder, so there wouldn't be two films.
Wells died in 1946 so "War of the Worlds", published in 1898 wouldn't enter the public domain until 2021. That's a whopping 123 years of copyright protection.
And we could look forward to Sherlock Holmes finally entering the public domain sometime next year.
-dameron
-----
DailyHaiku.com, saying more in 17 syllables than Big Media says all day.
In a global medium, "overseas" is a silly thing to say.
You might be interested in knowing that Gulf War2 started in 2003 and ended on May 1st, 2003. I don't know where you're getting 2004 from.
Speak truth to power.
But will it have JarJar?
Ok people, repeat after me:
Spielberg != Lucas
Spielberg != Lucas
Spielberg != Lucas
ET phone home jokes are probably called for, but JarJar? WTF? We're supposed to be geeks, sticklers for trivial facts. I mean, Lucas and Spielberg don't even look alike.
[insert relevant joke] Maybe the martians will be velocoraptors with Unix computers [insert relevant joke]
H.G. Wells is a brilliant writer, and arguabley the greatest Sci-Fi writer. He is also my favorite author. Unfortunately, his stories have a long history of being butcherd by hollywood, although I haven't seen some of the early adaptations from the 30's (and an Invisible Man from the 60's)- which seem to rate fairly well. Please let him rest in peace. Here is a partial listing:
The Food of the Gods - misses the point
The Empire of the Ants - a disaster
The Island of Dr. Moreau - 96 - aaaaagrh!
The Island of Dr. Moreau - 77 - fair
The Island of Dr. Moreau - 33 - haven't seen, might be good
The War of the Worlds Tv Series - Why?
The Time Machine - Fair
The Invisible Man - too horrible to contemplate
Oh, the pain...
However, the life+70 rule was adopted by the UK in 1988 and made retrospective, which resulted in some works that had fallen out of copyright because the previous life+50 rule had expired, re-entering it.
So Wells' books are still in copyright in the UK, and have never left it. I wonder quite who Pendragon films got the rights from?