Where to watch War of the Worlds (2005)

Trivia & production notes

• Tom Cruise suggested that Spielberg postpone War of the Worlds after Munich and that Cruise himself delay Mission: Impossible III so they could work together on the project simultaneously.
• Spielberg replaced the aliens' spacecraft with underground-buried tripods because he felt every alien invasion film used arriving spaceships.
• The production purchased a retired Boeing 747 that formerly flew for All Nippon Airways, spending $2 million on transportation costs alone to dismantle it and use it as the plane crash set piece.
• J.J. Abrams was offered the screenwriting job but declined because he was developing the pilot episode for Lost.
• David Koepp deliberately avoided depicting the destruction of landmark buildings and other elements he considered clichéd when writing the script.
• Spielberg worked with previsualization techniques during pre-production to accommodate a three-month schedule that was half the typical time for a film of similar scope.
• War of the Worlds is Spielberg's third film centered on alien visitation, following Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
• Spielberg wrote the script to reflect his own experiences, including parallels to his parents' divorce and his emotional response to the September 11 attacks.
• Miranda Otto's actual pregnancy was incorporated into the script when Spielberg decided to rewrite her character rather than recast the role after she became pregnant.
• The destroyed Boeing 747 set piece remains on display at Universal Studios Hollywood's Studio Tour.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article War of the Worlds (2005 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.