Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Well, there have been a lot of whispers about this in town over the last few weeks, and I’ve been hearing them from people at various studios. Now it looks like it’s all falling into place, and all those whispers are true. VARIETY’s going to be running at least part of the story in the morning. Steven Spielberg has delayed his still-untitled Munich Olympics movie, Tom Cruise is going to wait for JJ Abrams to finish this season of ALIAS so he can direct MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3 for a 2006 release, and in the meantime, WAR OF THE WORLDS is going to happen. I got this e-mail in earlier tonight:
This Time The Aliens Have Had Their Flu Shots........
To Whom It May Concern (Pretty much everyone on the planet).
Everyone should find out tomorrow morning (12th) but I wanted to be the first to announce the VERY exciting news that summer 2005 we will see Tom Cruise battle some invading alien A-holes in a modern retelling of “War of the Worlds”. If that wasn’t news enough, it is to be directed by Steven “Isn’t it about time I made another movie with aliens?” Spielberg. This news comes from a friend in a very senior position at Paramount “Damn, we’ve got some kick ass movies coming out!!” Studios.
I also learnt that J.J. Abrams is confirmed to direct Mission Impossible 3, but it will be put on the back burner (for obvious reasons) for a 2006 release.
Finally word on Exorcist: The Beginning and AvP is not good, but I guess we already expected that. Oh well, I’ll still go see ‘em.
Call me H.G. Swells.
This is one of those things where the script on the 1972 Munich Olympics film just isn’t ready in time, and thanks to the director fall-out on M:I3, that film can’t start on its original date, and that means the scramble is on to get a script that works for WAR OF THE WORLDS, something that’s eluded them so far.
There must be something in the air right now, because there are several other alien invasion projects in development at other studios. Obviously, having Cruise and Spielberg attached makes this one a force to be reckoned with, but I’d expect that some of the others that are further along in the development process might still get the jump on this one. It should be interesting to see what fallout there is from this announcement in the weeks ahead...
"Moriarty" out.
