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War of the Worlds Remake Already Shot Overseas

Posted by timothy on from the honor-the-orson dept.

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."

9 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. But will they do the radio broadcast again? by Nos. · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm is a good article talking about the broadcast that... upset a few people.

    1. Re:But will they do the radio broadcast again? by toastgoddess · · Score: 5, Informative

      And Fourmilab has the original novel by H. G. Wells online. It was first published in 1898 and it's still fun.

  2. Very overblown by GuyMannDude · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  3. Possible because WOTWorlds is in the public domain by thisissilly · · Score: 5, Informative
    War of the Worlds was original published in 1898. At the time, US copyright lasted for 28 years, and was renewable at that point for a second 28 year term, so copyright could have lasted until 1954. Now that it's public domain, no-one needs to ask permission to make a film out of it.

    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.

  4. It's about stealing a brand-name by GuyMannDude · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  5. Amazing no one posted the site... by AnswerIs42 · · Score: 4, Informative
    The official page for the movie is here.

    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.

  6. Re:I kind of liked the original version by spitzak · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  7. Overseas...? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Informative

    In a global medium, "overseas" is a silly thing to say.

  8. Re:Of course it will be drastically different/mode by the_maddman · · Score: 5, Informative

    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]