Ice Cube Fights for Humanity in “War of the Worlds” Trailer
H.G. Wells’ classic War of the Worlds is being re-imagined once again for our modern society by producers Patrick Aiello and Timur Bekmambetov. Directed by Rich Lee and written by Kenneth Golde and Marc Hyman, this new adaptation tackles our contemporary fears surrounding surveillance and personal data.
Bekmambetov is a pioneer of the “screenlife” film format popularized by films like Missing, Searching, and recent SXSW-premiering LifeHack. War of the Worlds will utilize the same format to mimic society’s growing dependency on our screens.
Ice Cube leads the cast as Will Radford, a top cyber-security analyst for Homeland Security. His daily duties at work primarily consist of monitoring the widespread surveillance system for any threats. One day, his normal routine is upended by an attack like no other. An otherworldly one at that. Suddenly, Will is on the front line of a fight to save humanity. In addition to adapting the Wells classic, War of the Worlds will also have nods to George Orwell’s 1984.
Alongside Ice Cube are Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick, and Michael O’Neill.
“The idea was organic,” says Aiello. “When catastrophes happen today, we experience them through our devices. That insight shaped the storytelling and tech used to create this immersive thriller.” Additionally, “For the first time ever, a studio-scale sci-fi epic has been produced using a format that places audiences inside the action through the lenses of phones, computers, and tablets. It’s a visceral, first-person experience designed for big screens in a language and format that is now natural within our daily lives.”
“It’ll be exciting for audiences to watch the movie and ask themselves: if aliens invaded today, how would we experience it? Most likely, we’d be watching it on our phones,” says Bekmambetov. “In that way, it’s kind of a modern spin on Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. Back then, he used radio, the most popular technology of the time, to make people believe the invasion was real. Today, that medium is the screen of our devices.”
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