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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."
The original WotW was a classic film, beloved by many (including me). Why remake it? Why remake 2 versions? They're out of ideas, folks. This is why we get craptacular stuff. They must not have an original bone/idea left.
I think it's a huge relief that Hines is beating Spielburg to the punch. I don't understand why we even bother making movies from books if we are going to change the stories completely. There is a reason many of these books have become classics. I guess that movies "inspired" by books rather than adapted by them are good for reading (you see the movie; you like it; you read the book, and it's better), but I think it hurts our culture in general. Maybe with Hines's movie out first, people will be less likely to think Spielburg's interpretation is Oscar-worthy.
Live free or die
Interestingly enough, there was a made-for-TV movie about ten years ago that went that same route. They had real newscasters from various markets all reporting on meteor strikes within the US.
Of course, despite dozens of disclaimers, panicked people still called the stations to ask if it was for real.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
You wait for a WotW film for decades, then 2 come along at once... seriously, though, the idea of doing a production of the original version, not the godawful american update (why must EVERYTHING be set in the US with US actors?) can only be a good thing. The original WotW was full of social commentary on the europeans in africa etc and colonialism. Cheesy spielberg remakes will be terrible.
... where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version ...
Hasn't that been done by Emmerich already? If you take a look at the plot of ID4:
- Aliens attack earth
- Their weapons are far superior
- Our weapons cannot hurt them really
- A virus kills them
It has a very close resemblence to the book War of the Worlds, the difference is that it is set in modern times.
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
In 2002 they had finished filming, and moved the release date from 2005 to 2004:h tml
http://www.pendragonpictures.com/CRMtrlr1.
Now, apparently, today in 2004, they are announcing a release date of 2005.
Chrome - back then finished and ready to hit cinemas in 2003 still has not emerged yet - here in 2004.
Apparently they searched high and wide for acting talent (wantint to cast unknowns) and auditioned over a thousand people, only to decide to carry on with a lead actor from Chrome.
Is this some sort of joke? Anyone got an inside scoop?
Not sure about the 'original' radio broadcast, but every Halloween there's usually at least a few radio stations that play Jeff Wayne's Musical War of the Worlds
Richard Burton narrates (great voice) and at least one member of the Moody Blues) Justin Hayward wrote and performed [some/all?] of the music.
The music is great, the story is excellent... a timeless classic, in my book. Well worth the listen.
In all seriousness though, I find myself more excited about this version than the Hollywood version. I hope the Peter Jackson philosophy continues to trickle through movie making.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Oops, I hit "Submit" by accident.
Personally, I'll definately go see Hines's version, probably ebfore Spielbergs (assuming they came out at the same time, which the article suggests might not be the case).
I think there's room for both. Sure, the Joe Sixpack will probably line up in front of Spielberg's simply because they know the name, but I have no problem seeing both.
A classy on-screen rendition of the ironclad destroying the Martian walker. That was the most powerful scene in the book for me.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist
That's a very calm reaction to someone who's work will inevitably be compared to Spielburg's. It sounds like he has a lot of faith in his project, I hope it turns out as good as he seems to think it will be. I'd much rather see a remake that's faithful to the story than a hollywood bastardization.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Deep Impact and Armageddon?
Volcano and Dante's Peak?
You know the battle is lost when multiple movie makers are RE-making the same movie at the same time.
Look into it deeper, and you will find that every year the same basic plot is made into at least 3 major studio movies.
There was the year of comets, the year of volcanos, the year of alien invasions (Independance Day, Mars Attacks), the year of virtual realities (Matrix, 13th Floor, Existanz), this year was Superheroes I believe, a couple years ago it was haunted houses.
Its a definate pattern that has been repeating yearly for as long as I remember.
Its as though one studio starts making a film, and the others rush into production with a basic description "comets will destroy the earth, a team with spaceships try to stop it", "haunted house", "alien invasion", "airplane crashes", "superhero", etc.
You can't take the sky from me...
Okay, I'm sick and tired of the hollywood crew basically turning out the same damn thing over and over. And instead of coming up with a new idea and story, they rehash the old ones. And if the old ones don't fit a demographic or specific plot, it's altered to match it. Movies like I-Robot and A Sound of Thunder were great as sci fi stories, but movies took the very concept of those stories and twisted it into another action thriller with special effects. The movies are practically the same damn thing, and the written stories are drastically different!
Now, sometimes remakes or book based movies are okay. This is because the director puts his artistic interpretation on the books that's based on art, not money.
The Thomas Crown affair was an interesting remake. It put a great spin on a classic movie, and that spin was based on good movie making, not making a movie for the masses that would turn a quick buck. Both the old and new version of the movie stand on their own as good movies in my opinion.
Another example is Harry Potter. Many of you zealous slashdotters don't like HP, but I like it as nice escapist and imaginative reading. It's just fun. Now the movies turn a tidy profit so it's not to say that there isn't money involved, but the books practically read like a screenplay, so taking the book to the movies and showing everything off is not a bad thing, because a director's artistic interpretation is not going to alter the feel of plot dramatically or change it to anything drastically different than what J.K. initially created. It's further cool to see J.K.'s world visually as well as to read about it.
Hollywood types create screenplays based off of kneejerk reactions of what will make money, not the quality of the work. "Hey, that Bradbury story was cool, but let's turn it into a thriller to attract more people. Who cares if it changes the theme, we need to make shitloads of money."
I'm so sick of bad remakes and the like. I'd rather have Hines take the story and attempt to stay true to the story and flop miserably, than Spielberg make a copy and turn it into a blockbuster action ride that has no deeper meaning and makes a mockery of a great classic Sci-fi story.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Maybe that would be a good thing, maybe the copyright holder would refuse the Lucas version and only allow good films to be made. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
From Yahoo! News:I emailed that to Lessig, and he was at a loss to explain it at the time.
This sig intentionally left justified.
How about Brits using Brit accents when they are suppose to be Russian?
Also, when did he warp a story before? Your argument is much more effective when you give examples... Because he didn't do U571, as you implied...
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Wouldn't the original be the book? The 1953 movie was very different than the book. I liked the book much better, mainly due to the contrast between the 19th century Earth and the much more advanced Martians. The towering Martian war machines were much more frigtening in my mind than the hood-ornament saucers in the movie.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Indeed. IANAL, but I wasn't aware that contract law could trump copyright law. If someone sold a company the film rights in 1951, how long is that contract actually valid for? Perpetuity? I realize now days film rights are done with "options" that can expire, be resold, etc., but I'm guessing that the system wasn't that sophisticated (read, people weren't looking for loopholes so much) back in the 50's...
This sig intentionally left justified.
I concur.
I recently bought a copy of Jeff Wayne's rock opera, War of the Worlds, on eBay (no $$$ to RIAA). I had heard it before on the radio, in bits and pieces, and always wanted to listen to it in its entirety. It's really good, and does a good job of following the original story. I wish there were more works like this, that blend a book-on-CD with a musical recording.
The Americanized movie in the sixties was good for its time. With Hollywood creativity in a slump and remakes all the rage, I figured a War of the Worlds remake was coming soon. I hoped it wouldn't be a Spielberg movie. I liked some earlier Spielberg movies, but none lately. AI was a great topic for a movie. I think it's a fascinating subject, yet I was only barely able to sit through the entire movie. It totally missed the mark.
So I'm glad there is a UK remake that stays true to the author's intent. That's the one I'll see. Unfortunately, the Schpeelberg crapola version will be the one making the money. It's the bane of engineers... marketing is much more important than the product.
Oh well, at least it can't be as bad as what Hollywood did to Starship Troopers. Can it?
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Not quite accurate. It's quite common that two movies get greenlighted around the same time that have the same basic premise or story; 3 movies at once is extremely rare.
It has nothing to do with one studio finding out that another one has been greenlighted, then rushing to copy it; it's just a matter of probabilities. Of the thousands of screenplays and pitched ideas that studios buy each year, there's a significant change that there will be at least two that are on the same basic idea.
The last thing a major studio's going to do is deliberately copy the same idea as another studio (and of course there are always exceptions, but this is the general rule). It doesn't make financial sense. Look at it like a timeline:
- It begins with studio A buying a script about, let's say, a giant asteroid smashing into the Earth. Let's assume studio B finds out the very same day that this script was bought, and decides (that day) to make its own giant asteroid movie.
- Studio A has a huge lead-time because the screenplay has already been written; Studio B is months behind (despite what you may think about the quality of the movies that come out, writing a good, original screenplay is really fucking hard). So if it wants to beat studio A's film to theaters, it needs to cut a lot of corners both on the script and on preproduction.
- Studio B STILL has to hope that, even if they do cut those corners, they finish their movie first. The more they rush, the worse the movie is going to be; but taking longer means they risk coming out second with a movie that is still not going to be very good.
- On the flipside, if B deliberately takes longer so that it comes out with its movie months after A, it has to hope that its movie ends up being better than A's, because otherwise it will just look like an also-ran. This is not trivial.
There are little independent producers/studios that will make cheap rip-offs in order to glom onto the media frenzy accompanying a big movie (witness the numerous cheap asteroid strike direct-to-video movies that came out right around the same time as Armageddon), but that's a different story, because those movies have a tiny budget and the leftover hype from the Big Hollywood Version can easily turn them a profit. Paramount is not going to see Universal buy a script about a volcano exploding and rush its own into production.
If they both happen to have bought the same story around the same time, and then one announces that it's going into production, the other might then rush its own into production -- but they've already got the script, so it's a more even race (and since they've already spent the money on buying the script, they don't want to waste that investment. Nevermind that 95% of the scripts they buy, they never make, but when there's suddenly a competitor to a particular script they bought, it makes them macho).
The weirdest one that I remember is the two biopics about Steve Prefontaine, a fairly obscure distance runner.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
A true story about the power of Radio
Around the early 90's, Malaysia had about 3 radio stations that broadcasted in English. The more predominate one was the government owned Radio 4. It is an unformatted station and the DJs basically had the freedom to do whatever they wanted, as long as they were within the tolerances of censorship law.
Radio 4's morning show (morning till about noon) was hosted by a DJ named Patrick Teoh, whose morning show usually consisted of a talk show where he would highlight social issues and current events. He brought up issues like the horrible traffic situation, dirty public toilets and as much as he could, criticism of the follies of those in power.
So, about a week before April Fools day, Patrick was called upon by a friend of his, a Creative Director at an advertising agency. The agency wanted to do a little stunt for April Fools day and a plan was hatched.
Rather a duck was hatched. It was agreed that on April Fools day, Patrick would start his show as normal, and as the topic of the day, he would highlight the (fictional) case of an advertising agency abusing ducks. The Story was that an advertising agency, in making an advertisement featuring dancing ducks, got the ducks to dance by placing them on hot plates and filming them as their feet were burned and jumped.
As expected, the radio station's switch board lit up like a Christmas tree, with callers angrily criticising the Ad agency for their cruelty towards animals and along the way, angry words were said, along with demands for more details and the identity of the company.
As was the plan, about halfway through the show, a (fictional) lady secretary form the Ad Agency was to call the station and she was to tell a (again fictional) sob story about how she felt so guilty that her company was doing this and how the Creative Director for whom she worked was a really cruel man and he was keeping teh ducks in a back room at the office. Along the way she let it slip that the Creative Director was a foreigner.
After the call, again came a new torrent of callers. This time, instead about being about the ducks, the nature of the called suddenly turned nationalistic, with things like "How dare these foreigners come to our country and do this to our ducks?" being said and people were demanding that the Creative Director be sacked and booted out of the country.
Next on the script was a call from a fictional animal rights group, it called itself GNAP, which if you said out loud sounds exactly like the word for 'duck' in a local dialect, the first clue that the whole thing was an April Fools joke. So the group voiced its objections and vowed action. (Satire on the many real life NGO's who are mainly talk and little action)
A few more calls later was the finale, where the Managing Director of the Ad Agency was to call. In his call he would make a public apology on the company's behalf, explaining that the Creative Director acted on his own and the end of the call was a dramatic firing of the Creative Director, with "... wherever you are, if you are hearing this, consider this yourself fired and come over and pack up your things"
Now, even though the Ad Agency was real, the Creative Director was indeed the person named, the story about the ducks, the secretary's admission, the animal rights group and the dramatic closing were pure fiction. It was to be announced later that the who thing was just a April Fools prank.
Now, what wasn't expected that while all this was going on, the real life SPCA was listening in and alarm bells went off. In the heat of the moment, without proper investigation, a police report was lodged against the Ad Agency for cruelty to the ducks. Just after the drama ended on radio, a team of policemen along with the SPCA raided the premises of the Ad Agency.
It was of course explained to the raiding party that the whole thing was a joke, but with all the outrage, the secretary's emotional admission and the dramatic firing of the Creati
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
What hollywood has been about in the past is taking something with a built in audience, just like LoTR, and putting out something that was crap because it already had a built in audience. Rick "f'n" Berman is a prime example of this with his Trek offerings. Instead Peter Jackson kept a reverence for the books in his movies that I truly do think came through. Because of that, more people read the books than they otherwise would have, and the legacy of Tolkien was strengthened. That is the philosophy that I support.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
It's not that literacy is being treated as elitism, it's that the elitists are treating literacy as elitism. The original post stated one movie for the literates, one movie for the Nascar fans. Their is definetly implied elitism there.
Next, being literate is not simply mere. Literate doesn't just mean being able to read and write. In fact, literate usually means well read, or well learned.
The implication is that people who are educated will like one, while those who are not educated will like the other.
Which is all very interesting, because the purpose of movies and books are basically to entertain. Therefore, a movie that entertains more people could be considered better than a movie that only entertains a select few (the elitists). After all, the movie that entertains more people has accomplished it's main goal more-so than the other movie.
Note: Please do not take the above as me saying I like X type of movies. Assuming that from reading the above is very Nascar-like of you. =)
Jason Lotito
A good book can not always be shot page by page for a movie.
Indeed, and you'd probably be safe to say "never." The Hollywood rule of thumb is that one page of screenplay equals one minute of screen time. (Oddly, this rule holds regardless of whether it's for dialog, action, or description.) Add this to the fact that screenplays have far fewer words on a page than the average novel, and it's easy to see that all but the shortest novels are too long for page-by-page adaptation. With Lord of the Rings, we're talking about roughly 1,200 pages, and even if those were less-dense screenplay pages, that translates to 20 hours of screen time!
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot