(Photo by Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection. WAR OF THE WORLDS.)
H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds has been a steady source of inspiration and adaptation, a novel published in 1898 that we’ve carried through the centuries on the treads of its wide-scale alien terror, grueling counterattack chase against skyscraper-tall space invaders, and, bubbling just beneath its words, allegory for the violent shadow of colonizing empires.
Being public domain also helps.
Though written by the Wells in England during the Victorian era, War of the Worlds has burrowed deep into American culture, now a piece of the paranoid fabric. 1939 was a big year for Worlds‘ journey, when Orson Welles broadcast himself into legend with a vérité radio dramatization that genuinely duped listeners, the number of which grows with each passing year.
By the early 1950s, the race was on for the first in-color sci-fi movie to ever hit theaters. The sprinters: George Pal’s production of The War of the Worlds, and 20th Century Fox’s Invaders From Mars. Though it was a photo finish to the silver screen, World‘s legacy reaches further with its apocalyptic mood, ominous spacecraft design, and engaging special effects.
In 2005, Steven Spielberg had Tom Cruise running for his terrestrial life in a $132-million adaptation. (This was sniped at by Asylum’s first mockbuster, H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, where they at least they credited their work.) There’s a cultural significance to Spielberg’s version. If War is looked upon as a third piece connecting to the earlier A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report, they trilogize as a dark vision of pre- and post-9/11 anxieties.
And, in 2025, we were struck by the COVID-shot War of the Worlds, a screenlife Amazon movie-plug championing delivery drones and remote-spying on your daughter’s muffin intake, all to rise to the burning days of our techno-feudal dystopia. It stars Ice Cube.
Additionally featured in this guide is Malaysian animated sequel, Goliath, set in an alternate steampunk reality. Plus, two TV series have been produced: A 2019 3-episode BBC series set in Edwardian times (starring Eleanor Tomlinson and Rafe Spall), and not confusingly premiering the same year, a 3-season show with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Gabriel Byrne. (Alex Vo)
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