Making some grumbling noise prior to its debut, Steven Spielberg’s “woke” revision of H.G. Wells’ source material, War of the Worlds made massive box office numbers in 2005. Promoting newfangled ideas and producing a dramatic story about the end of the world, the movie brings out the tale of an alien invasion that destroys humanity.
Despite the stylish take on the opening credits being military footage archives, spliced with clips of parasites at work, the movie’s ending baffled everyone. Tom Cruise starring in War of the Worlds, has been a project partially directed out of pride. However, Steven Spielberg admitted disliking the end of the movie, to fellow filmmaker James Cameron.
Steven Spielberg’s Personal Interest In War of the Worlds
Witnessing mega giants, Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg team up is undeniably monumental. Coming together for the highly anticipated HG Wells’ War of the Worlds in 2005, the pair took the cinematic world into a new dimension. Expressing his interest in HG Wells’ classic novel, Spielberg admitted his recurring wish of adapting the story into a film, way before he became a million-dollar filmmaker.
Hoping to express the enigma of the story on the big screen, young Steven Spielberg desired for the project to be his own, for a long time. Thus finding Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning fit for the film, Spielberg began his mission and created the 2005 sci-fi.
“We’ve talked about this for a couple of years when we were looking for another project to do together. I told Tom that I wanted to do this book since I read it in college before I was even a filmmaker. I wanted to do some version of it at some point.” Spielberg shared with Female.
Apart from his appreciation for HG Wells’ story, Steven Spielberg‘s fascination with the extraterrestrials encouraged him even more to adapt the novel. Willing to prove the unbound scope that alien movies have at the box office, Spielberg directed his $606M War of the Worlds in 2005. However, despite the massive box office collection, the director wasn’t quite happy, especially with the ending of the movie.
War of the Worlds Ending Still Bothers Steven Spielberg
Taking up War of the Worlds as a challenging project, Steven Spielberg shocked his audience with amazing cinematography and brilliant adaptation. Constantly underestimated in the entertainment industry for not having hands-on experience with alien movies, Spielberg admitted his desperation to direct such a movie.
“Maybe it was just the idea that everybody over the years said here was the guy who can’t make a scary alien movie that goaded me into thinking why can’t I try my hand at the kind of film that Ridley Scott made when he made the first Alien,” Spielberg expressed.
Although the movie performed well at the domestic box office making $234M and further making $606M globally, the director wasn’t satisfied with how the film ended. Admitting how shooting War of the Worlds wasn’t always fun, due to the immense anxiety and risks associated with it, Spielberg expressed being upset with the end.
Discussing his feelings with fellow filmmaker James Cameron, Spielberg mentioned, “That film doesn’t have a good ending. I never could figure out how to end that darn thing”. Getting mixed responses about the ending of the movie, even Cameron agreed, perhaps the War of the Worlds ending wasn’t what people expected it to be. Blaming it more on the source material rather than Spielberg, Cameron stated, “I don’t think H.G. Wells could figure it out”.
Watch Steven Spielberg directed and Tom Cruise starred War of the Worlds on Amazon Prime and HBO.
