The science-fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, written between 1895 and 1897, has become one of the most essential science-fiction titles of all time. That said, it also served as the inspiration for one of the most incredible and notorious moments in entertainment when Orson Welles on the CBS radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air he hosted and directed, incited panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was taking place. “The panic and mass hysteria so readily associated with ‘The War of the Worlds‘ did not occur on anything approaching a nationwide dimension“, wrote media historian W. Joseph Campbell in 2003.
The novel is a pioneering, shocking, and nightmarish tale, where naïve suburban Londoners investigate a strange cylinder from space, but are instantly incinerated by an all-destroying heat ray. Soon, gigantic killing machines that chase and feed on human prey are threatening the whole of humanity. A pioneering work of alien invasion fiction, The War of the World‘s journalistic style contrasts disturbingly with its horrifying visions of the human race under siege.
The book has also been the inspiration for feature films and television shows, outstanding its first film adaptation by Byron Haskin, The War of the Worlds (1953), Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005) starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, and even Tim Burton’s satire Mars Attacks! (1996). This year, a new movie is taking inspiration from the original material in War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023).
The movie is the debut feature film of Junaid Syed, a visual effects artist who has worked in popular titles like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), Clash of the Titans (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010), Paul (2011), John Carter (2012), Dredd (2012), Total Recall (2012), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Interstellar (2014), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and Doctor Strange (2016) among others. He has also been behind the awards-winner short film Homes of Hope (2017). Tom Jolliffe, the writer of Scarecrow’s Revenge (2019), Witches of Amityville Academy (2020), The Legend of Jack and Jill (2021), Jurassic Island (2022), Wrath of Van Helsing (2022), The Area 51 Incident (2022), Mega Lightning (2022), Firenado (2023) and other b-movie titles, has been the co-writer of the screenplay.
Sam Gittins, Vincent Regan, Lara Lemon, Alhaji Fofana, Leo Staar, Kathi DeCouto, Kris Saddler, and Stefan Boehm form the main cast of War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023).
The movie centers on three young friends who track a meteorite that crashes to earth and quickly discover they are at the epicenter of an alien invasion.
Vertical Entertainment has the distribution rights for the movie and has scheduled it for a release on April 21, 2023. Watch its official trailer here.
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