War of the Worlds (2005)
- During the filming of War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
- Steven Spielberg originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
- The incredible score for War of the Worlds was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction disaster film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on H.G. Wells's 1898 novel. Tom Cruise stars as Ray Ferrier, a working-class divorced father in New Jersey who must protect his two children โ teenage son Robbie played by Justin Chatwin and young daughter Rachel played by Dakota Fanning โ when massive alien tripods emerge from beneath the Earth's surface and begin systematically exterminating humanity with heat rays and harvesting human blood.
Spielberg conceived the film explicitly as a post-9/11 story, and the imagery โ people fleeing through ash-covered streets, fliers posted for missing loved ones, the casual brutality of an overwhelming force against a helpless civilian population โ deliberately evoked the September 11th attacks with visceral directness. The tripod emergence sequence, in which the ground cracks open on a suburban street and a machine rises amid screaming crowds, was one of the most terrifying scenes in modern science fiction. Dakota Fanning, just 10 years old, delivered a remarkably intense performance โ her screams of genuine terror were so convincing that they became the film's emotional barometer.
The film earned $591 million worldwide. Tim Robbins's unhinged basement survivor Ogilvy provided the film's most disturbing human element.
