The End of the Paramount Deal

Hello, dear listeners and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly imps good one. Hello Chris I think you're lagging a little bit.' having trouble hearing you. What about now Is that better? Yeah, that's fine Hello, dear listeners and welcome back to another ep c David, come on D Did, canan you get up inside, please? I'll go grab him you Jesus De, turn your input down Uh shit, sorry. C was telling, G me one second. Oh good. Hey Yeah,. We're about to record ing. What is going on? Chris, if you need to go, it's totally fine. Stayait have to go Where' sp? I need to go right? No wait, where are we going? I don't know. You just need to go. Yeah Hello, dear listeners and welcome back to your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a movie that asks the question What if the aliens just pookeed themselves to death I'm one of your hosts, Lizzie Bassett here as always with Chris Winnerbauer and Chris, what do you have for us today How did you did the Tom Cruise sccream? I feel like this is when we got into peak Tom Crisecream mode. It was It was this into Mission ofossible three, which I love both of his performances in both of these movies. I do also love that you believe that the orange goo that comes out of the ship at the end is there collection diarrhea. Tell me that's not diarrhea. You tell me He. And then they'll just die. The end of this movie is literally just the aliens get Montezuma's revenge. die. Turns out the tripodons are giant cruise ships. They get hunt virus and they die. Okay, that is not a joke that could be a very serious pandemic that we all need to deal with. We are talking about the two thousand five science fiction disaster film War of the Worlds, directed by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Cruise, some good running, some great running in this movie. This feels like the beginnings of Tom Cruise running as well. Yeah, I mean he had run before this for sure. I mean, he's run since all the right movves. Yeah, but he's really enjoying it in this one, you know? Well, it's the chest out, you know, It's the bounce. Yeah. It's the lightness of the feet. He's a great on screen runner. You can't argue with it Lizzy, had you seen the two thousand five Stehvenpielberg w the worldorld Be before, and what were your thoughts upon watching it or rewatching it for the podcast? My answer is I don't know. I thought I had not seen this. But then upon watching it for the podcast, there were certain scenes where I was like, this feels weirdly familiar. Maybe I did see this, but regardless, this was my first time really I would say taking action having an actionable viewing of War of the Wors. And you know what I had in my head that this movie must be really bad because I think I remembered a lot of perhaps what we're going to talk about the press surrounding this movie that maybe was less related to the actual reviews of it than I realized and more related to other things. And so in my brain, I was like, oh, this is gonna to be a mess. And then it started and I was like This is pretty good And you know, I think the practical effects are excellent. The practical sets are excellent The main problem which is not really their fault is that The technology for CGI was not where it needed to be for them to rely on it as much as they do in this movie, I think Some of it looks fine. Some of it doesn't hold up quite as well, but I think the performances across the board are really excellent, particularly Dakota Fanning, who is acting circles around absolutely everyone else. I have one bone to pick with this movie though. They set up both a Checkkov's gun and a Chekov's crane operator, and they never deliver on the crane operator. I'm so glad you bring this up I have a big theory about this. Okay, great. I can't wait to get to it because I literally was like, well, that's gonna come back. And then it never does. ever. Yeah. If anyone's not familiar with the term Checkov's gun, what we were referring to is the thought that if you introduce a gun at the beginning of a play in the case of personal terminology and the first act, that it inevitably will appear by the end as part of the climax. It will go off But yes, it will go off by the end. So you introduce something The anticipation is that it will or must come back. And this never comes back ever. The gun does come back, actually. But come on, he's a crane operator. Some other thoughts that I had. Why does Tom Cruz keep smiling at the aliens? That's a big question I had for the whole first act of this movie. Also, he's maybe the worst on screen father ever. Every other scene, he's just leaving his children behind in the midst of a disaster and then seems to remember vaguely that they're there at which point he, you know jauntily bounces back to them on his feet. Why are the aliens so bad at zapping Tom Cruise? They seem to be able to get everyone else around him. He's zigging and zging. He's zigging and zagging. He's very fast. Okay, he's very fast. That's fine. All right, I'll accept that Does anyone wantanna be in Tim Robins basement?, absolutely. The answer that is no, absolutely no. No. And then not my blood, not my blood. One of my favorite lines. And then the last thing I'll say is in movies like this, I do find myself wondering, what is the point at which I would just lay down and die? becausecause certainly it is before the end of this movie I am gonna self emilate along with what I thought that brother had done. Well, it's interesting because in the original book, in the HG Wells book, at the end of the book, effectively that's what the hero, the narrator does. You know, he's a writer. It takes place obviously in the south of London. He basically decides I'm just going to go and let the aliens kill me, but they've poop themselves to death when he arrives, as you say. so's literally Tell me that's not what they're doing. No, I do agree with you. but it's interesting that you mentioned that because that is basically the end of the book. And I think if I can jump in for me, like I really like this movie, but I really it's got some jumbled elements, perhaps, and it feels like the end the end They don't set up the end super well, which I know we will get to. The last thing I just want to say very quickly is that the reason I'm saying that and maybe this is what you're getting to, but like this movie is harrow in terms of it does not let up. It's gnarly. It's gnarly and it does such a good job of building the tension across so many of these sequences that I literally just thought to myself, I think I'd be okay being dead. Like I think I would just be like Ah Let lay down. So yeah, I think it really for about, especially for the first ninety minutes, I would say It's a two hour and fifteen minute movie. And the first ninety minutes is what you would call a divorced dad road trip, like a weekend with divorced Dad movie mixed with an alien disaster movie which is like Dad is wholly incapable of keeping milk in the fridge, let alone keeping us safe from the aliens I really like that. and we'll talk about some of the specific choices they make with Cruz's character, where he's at in his career when this movie's made. And then you get the obligatory, you know, we're hiding out in the basement with the weird prepper guy, you know, sort of sequence with Harlan Ogleb played by Tim Robbins, where it doesn't feel like the movie's on a sure footing. And then yeah, in the end it kind of feels like the movie that Spielberg and s and company wanted to make, which I do think they do for most of it, which is a movie that adheres to the thought that the truth is we would run, right? L we would not be brave. We would like try to protect our families and we would run. And it kind of from a cinematic perspective, it's exploring almost a cowardly response, againgain, a very normal response, but a cinematically cowardly response to an alien invasion. And I really like that, but it almost doesn't feel like they have the courage of their convictions at the very end mean the way end Be the very end almost feels like ru' character, Ray Ferrier would experience had he died and he had like, you know, was having a vision from heaven because it's such a picturesque, perfect ending and it almost feels like Spielberg can't commit to the darkness of what they set out to and he has to go back towards the Spielbergian sort of schchmaltz at the very end of the movie. But I really love so many elements of this movie, as you mentioned Lizzie, The set pieces are great. They're really good The scene where the car gets jacked from them is an awesome scene. And when he loses the gun and you realize, oh my God, that's a blessing because he would have gotten himself killed because he does not know what he's doing. The ferry sequence is great. I love I'm creating the actress's name who's in Abott Elementary who is like trying to get on the ferry with him and she loses her grip on him and you know, he leaves her behind I think it does a really good job of subverting a lot of disaster movie tropes in a big way, again, until kind of the very end of the movie, which is fine. Yeah. And I also think, so for anyone who's not familiar, the very end of this movie, basically you learn that the aliens were all killed by an amoeba. L they die by diarrhea on their spaceships. Which again, that's how the book ends. That's how every adaptation of this has ended. yeah. Right But I think the reason that this one feels unnatural is that they shift to that so abruptly and they don't even show it happening. Someone just says, oh, the machines were behaving erratically and then they fell over. It's like you don't even really see that. So it feels like a very sharp left turn at the end versus getting used to it, getting to witness it more in real time along with Ray. You don't really get to do that. It just feels very tacked on But let's get into it. J'ust a couple of other thoughts that I had. I really think that this is like Spielberg doing a love letter to a lot of other movies as well. One of my favorite parts is when he steps out of Harlan Oglvy's basement, and it's the clear wizard of Oz stepping into Technicolor moment and everything's red from the kind of like weird root like plant that the Martians are seeding our planet with There are so many loving homages to the nineteen fifty three film. Those are also present in some of his earlier work. I would argue, there's a shot that we'll get to from the fifty three film that he basically recreates an ET in a specific way But I really think what's interesting about this movie, as you mentioned, Lizzie, is that you remember the bad press around this movie. Yeah. Right.s The story I think a lot of people remember about War of the Worlds or the story at least that I've been told and have internalized is that this movie was at some level a failure and at some level it was because of erratic pererhaps behavior from Tom Cruise on the press tour of this movie, as well as just generally speaking public behavior. Is this the couch jump? We will get to the Oprah Win Free couch jump, which happened on the press tour for this movie. This is a very specific moment in time. This is when some specific internet outlets were birthed. YouTube came online right about this time And What I want this episode to be about is almost a debunking episode about what is the truth behind War of the Worlds, going all the way back to the first known adaptation the first notable adaptation done by Orson Wells So let's get into it, Lizz First, the details. War of the Worlds is a two thousand five science fiction disaster film directed by Steven Spielberg The screenplay is credited to Josh Friedman and David Kepp based on the novel by HG. Wells It was produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Colin Wilson, and it was brought to life by a bevy of Stalwart, Spielberg collaborators. I'm sure you saw the names in the credits, Lizzie Yeah. The music, John Williams, cinematography, Janis Kaminsky, editing Michael Kahn, costume design Joanna Johnon, productuction design, Rick Carter. These are people who have worked with Spielberg for a decade or more. It stars. Tom Cruise as longongshoreman Ray Ferrier, Zakota Fanning as his daughter, Rachel, Justin Chatwin as his surly son Robbie, Miranda Otto as his barely their ex wife Marianne And Tim Robins as Harlan Ogilby, as always see. IMDV. We'll get old on. I have a theory on Tim Robins. get The IMDV logline reads An alien invasion threatens the future of humanity. The catastrophic nightmare is depicted through the eyes of one American family fighting for survival whichich I feel like reads more like a logline for science. Yes. Well, there's a lot of similarities. Well, I shouldn't say that. There are circumstantial similarities and yet science handles it very differently. Very differently. I I might propose an alternative, When an alien invasion threatens the future of humanity, Tom Cruise runs.. That's your movie Today Lizzie, as I mentioned, we're to talk about aliens, of course. We're going to talk about belief And we're going to try to get to the truth with all of this. Yes. What is the real story of War of the Worlds. We have to go back in time to a Sunday, which everybody knows is the scariest day, as my wife calls it, the Sunday scaries as you're staring down the barrel of a Monday. In fact, it was a Sunday, the night before the scariest night of the year, Halloween And it was a very scary year, nineteen thirty eight A lot of the world was staring down the barrel of fascism as we've discussed many a time. Nazi Germany had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. Japan continued its military offensive into China, Nationalist forces under Franco were making gains against the Republic in Spain. But in America, we were like, We got a couple of oceans here, separating us from the rest of the world. We're going to the movies. We're listening to the radio. and the Mercury Theater had a recurring spot on CBS opposite famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his puppet, Charlie McCarthy. Although it was actually called the Charlie McCarthy S show so was Edgar the puppet or was Charlie the puppet? It's an open ended question. Anyway Who Lizzy wasn in an innovative up and comer in his early twenties, working with the Mercury Theatater, founder of the Mercury Theatater at the time That would be Orson Wells. Orson Wells. And he decided to put a Wellesyian war on the radio HG Wells' The War of the Worlds. Different spelling, no relation. The science fiction novel chronicled a Martian invasion of Earth, and it was forty years old. It had been published back in eighteen ninety eight. Orson had a fresh angle, Lizzie, what was his idea? His idea was to dramatize it as though it were a real radio broadcast. Now to be clear, he was not intending, I don't believe, to trick people into thinking it was genuinely real. He wanted to use the format of news broadcast to tell the story. I listened to it in preparation for this episode, and it's really fun. Yeah But to be clear, it's really only the first half. It's just until the intermission. Right. And then after the intermission, you go into a more predictable like traditional play with a narrator and other actors. So he askks Howard Kotch to write the script, Yes of Casab Blanca, which we discussed. Okay in the form of a news broadcast. And after three days, Kotch tells Wells's producer, John Hausman, this is hopeless. Husman tries to reach Wells, he can't. So he goes back to Cge and says, Wellses wants you to stick with it. Keep going. So they work for a few more days, Some actors pitch in, and then Wells adds some changes that bypassed the CBS legal department because they had already done the legal review. And on Sunday, october thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight, the broadcast of Orson Wells' adaptation of HD Wells's War of the Worlds was beamed to the nation The story that you and I and I believe many of our audience have heard is that nearly everyone believed that this was real. They missed the opening disclaimer and the intermission, mass hysteria ensued, peopleople fainted, fled, died by suicide Or did they? Now Lizzy, have you listened to the broadcast before? Yes. It's great. It's really fun. It's electric. I do think they do a great job of making it feel real by doing those and now returning to the live band, musical Inludes, right? And it feels as if it's just percolating slowly and then all of a sudden it explodes. So the first half, as I mentioned, plays in near real time as Martian cylinders land in New Jersey. Heat rays from tripods lay waste to nearly seven thousand soldiers. And the war, of course, isn't much of a war at all in the book, you know as as much a war as there would be between men and ants or as Harlan Oglevy says in the movie men and maggots. But far fewer people were listening than we've been led to believe. And even the people who did tune in and even the people who did initially think it was real news, didn't seem to panic Some of those who were initially duped quickly realized they were listening to fiction W, Lizzy, how could they know that they were familiar with Oron Wells or I don't know. No, they just looked outside. Oh, they said Yeah, I don't see any tripods out there. Or they changed the station and they realized that other news stations were not reporting on this. Yes. Or they checked the broadcast schedule in the newspaper and the description said a dramatization of Orson Well. So yeah. What I had heard was that There was another program on a different channel that aired directly before this and that that was a big deal and that that was the reason that many people had missed the disclaimer that aired at the top of this. So that there was some initial confusion from people who tuned in, but that it was not to the extent that we are led to believe. No againain, At the intermission, you would hear another disclaimer, This is an adaptation A lot of people just enjoyed the show, according to one source, of the seeen hundred and seventy people who wrote to the main CBS station about the broadcast O thousand eighty six were complimentary, and roughly forty percent of the letters sent to the FCC were supportive of the broadcast. But on Halloween, nineteen thirty eight, the next night, War of the Worlds dominated the news, thanks to the newspapers. Headlines claimed Thousands terrorized listeners in panic. People pray for safety One source claims that the newspapers were intentionally sensationalizing the news in order to put radio in a bad light. Would this have happened if it were in a newspaper? No! Get rady of your radio. Read more newspapers. That's not to say that nobody panicked. Yeah. Radio stations and newspapers did get calls from people trying to figure out the truth. Is this real? Is it not real? And there were a couple of unfortunate coincidences that made the broadcast more believable My personal favorite, in the town of Concrete, Washington, great name, home to one thousand people at the time, they lost power during the broadcast. No That would be. Oh no. There were also alleged eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen the rockets from Mars, which, you know, it's like my daughter who just makes up stories about it everything. sureure. Last night, I'll share this briefly. We do this walk every night before bed to try to get some energy out of my son And Nora just insists on touching thisuzzy cactus and I'm like, you're gonna get pricked,'re gonna get sureure enough. She comes back. she's like And she got these little cactus spines in your hand. And I was like, Do you touch the cactus? She goes, No, it was the grass. And I go, No, those are cactus spines. She goes, a spider threw them at me What And so I start pulling the cactus findes out of her hand. I go, what did we learn? And she goes, Don't touch the cactus. Amazing. Little turd. Anyway, the point is, the FCC launched an investigation, but there was no punishment, there was no formal action. They made an informal agreement. We're going to avoid the fake news format going forward. And then twenty sixteen called and said, hold my beer. Yeah. So Orson Wells moves on to Hollywood The question is, what if War of the World had beaten him there? Would the radio broadcast be remembered or taken seriously at all had it hit the silver screen first? And it's kind of interesting that it didn't. I think we sometimes like to think of the IP invasion of Hollywood as a modern phenomenon. We talk about this all the time, Lizzie. We tell people like there's a rich history of IP being used in Hollywood. We just discussed a movie, adaptation of a book Edna Farbara's Giant, and you mentioned she was adapted how many times in the thirties, for example Alough you said like every one of her books, basically. ten out of twelve, I believe of her books were adapted. And if you look at silent film, that's almost all existing IP. That's exactly right. So stududios have been chasing material for over a century. Back in the twenties, Broadway plays pulp fiction, religious literature, Shakespeare, and science fiction was ripe for the picking. So Paramount reportedly bought the rights to the novel in nineteen twenty five Basically thirteen years before Orson's broadcast. And there was precedent. you know, Think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, for example, orr even something like, you know, Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde. So there are plans for Cecil B Emil to direct. Roy Pomeroy drafts an outline, but it doesn't go anywhere. I don't know why, but the movie just never took off. And at some point in the early thirties, Alfred Hitchcock expressed interest in the property. This is before he had come to the United States and started working a lot, you know in the United States with David Oelsniick. That one doesn't go anywhere. And that actually makes a lot of sense. This is a British property. The book is originally sent nearer around Surrey and southern England. Next up, Russian director Serji Eisenstein pioneers the theory of montage And he directed, you big movies, battleship Patemkin, right? I think nineteen twenty five. That was his second film. That's an enormous film for the time. By the way, if you've never seen a photo of Sergie Eisenstein, I was reminded that he is one hundred percent the inspiration for the crazy haircut of the main character in David Lynch's eraser headad. Lizzie, look him come up really quickly Oh yeah.. Oh wow. It looks like he was e Joke of Sean Pan has been electrocuted every day since nineteen seventy five. his setetss about Sarchi Eisenstein. Yeah. So another screenplay gets written, but that doesn't go anywhere. And after the nineteen thirty eight broadcast, Paramount decides we can't make this movie right now. Lizzy, why could you not make War of the Worlds in nineteen thirty nine? Because you are seemingly inevitably headed towards World War two. World War two starts. World War two is happening. We're not in it. It's happening. We're not participating Yeah. And in fact, there's a lot of resistance to participate and there are government organizations and Senate committees designed prevent propaganda from making it feel like the United States should join the war.. So this would be a very dicey movie to make at the time So let's fast forward to nineteen fifty one America, thanks in no small part to the Nazi scientists brought to the U. S. in operation paperclip is experiencing a scientific boom. And Hollywood is entering the golden age of science fiction in Hollywood. To be clear, in literature, it predates this by two decades. But in Hollywood, the public is captivated by the idea of space travel and the atomic bomb. And in nineteen fifty one, we get some really important releases. So The Th from anotherother World RKO And the day the Earth stood still. Yes, twentieth century Fox. Michael Renny was ill the day the Earth stood still. I was just listening to Rocky Horror, of course, that is from science fiction Double Feature off of that movie's soundtrack, which lists almost all of the sci fi classies from this era. Things come full circle at Paramount when they assign George Powell, prolific science fiction producer of the fifties to make War of the Worlds. Now he had been Dem Mill's protege, and the resulting film was released in the United States in late August of nineteen fifty three Pell produced, Barry Lyndon wrote the screenplay, and Byron Haskin directed. Lizzie, have you ever seen the nineteen fifty three The War of the Worlds adaptation with Jean Barry and Anne Robinson? I have not. No. It's very fun. It's very hokey from the time. It actually has really fun special effects. There are a couple of key changes from the book. They move it to California, just outside of Los Angeles and then eventually in Los Angeles. The main character is a scientist, not a writer as he is in HG. Wells's version. They give him a love interest, played by Anne Robinson, who's, I believe effectively a nurse instead of a wife that he's trying to get back to because they wanted to give it like an active love, you know sort of element But in a lot of ways, it's much more accurate than the Sielberd version. Like the aliens are closer, although smaller to the way that they're described in the Wells version. Although they do make a couple of important changes, they give the aliens the three fingers. they have tentacles in the Wells version. You can see the influence on ET from the nineteen fifty three version, for example. And it was, you know, kind of innovative. It won a special effects Oscar, you know, and it was nominated for sound and editing It's a real like staple of this era This podcast is sponsored by Bilt. Guys, Lizzie and I don't always agree on everything. For example, she loves a good Sally Bowl style pixie cut and I say Gods spepeed. But we do agree that housing is expensive. Rent mortgage, it doesn't matter which one you're paying. It stings every month, but built can make it feel a little bit better. Let me explain Built started out rewarding members on their rent and Now as of twenty twenty six, Bilt members can also earn points on mortgage payments wherever they live. 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Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you So the era of science fiction as, you, kind of the Hollywood B movie crop, staple crop ends arguably in nineteen sixty eight with Stanley Kubrick's two thousand one of Space Odyssey, which really takes sci fi to the next level. Right. And movies like War of the Worlds, which I think scratched an itch for large scale destruction and effects, morph more into the disaster genre, which we've talked about. and you get movies like Earthquake in airport and airport seventy seven Swarm. Poseidon, Tower of Terror. Poseidon addventure, Towerering Inferno. Yeah, sorry, notot Tower Terror Towering Inferno, yes, I don't like my dad Power of terror side boat, Hunt virus on the seas. But of course, we have aliens, right returning in the late seventies. Could you name a couple of movies, Lizzie from around that time that involve aliens? Aliens Perfect. Alien. Alienots alien. Shortly thereafter the thing, Close enncounters of the Third kind, ET. Exactly. Even Star Wars to a certain extent, you know features many aliens. You mentioned John Carpenter rememade thing from anotherother World. Yeah theing thing. Now there were always rumblings of War of the Worlds. like let's remake War of the Wors. This is a book that people know. It's been around for nearly a century at this point. The movie has not been remade since nineteen fifty three I think people you know, a lot of movies that are frequently remade, there tends to be about a fifteen year cadence. Y. It's about fifteen years every time. If you look at a star as born, it might be like twenty is years. Yeah. fifteen to twenty years go by and the studio perks up, right? And they say, all right, we got to do it. Now, in the early nineties, Steven Spielberg buys one of the last surviving War of the World's radio scripts. I can find no evidence of this, but I am convinced that the discovery of ET by Elliot Along with the alien design was directly influenced by the nineteen fifty three adaptation. But what we do know, Lizzie, is that Stehven Spielberg loves aliens. Me too. I gotta tell you, aliens are right up there with vampires for me. I will watch almost anything with aliens in it. I love them. I mean, more of the worlds, they are alien vampires. Yeah in the Wells version and in the Spielberg version, they know. I drink your milkshakes. I know they literally drink the human milkshakes and then spray them everywhere. They do. Can I shout out one alien movie very briefly? If no one has seen this, it was a small movie. I can't remember how many years ago, it came out, but it's called The Vast of Night And it's excellent, one of my favorite alien movies. So if you're an alien fan, The Vast of Night is very Spielbergy in many ways. It is, yes, very much. In a close encounters kind of way. In a close encounters kind of way, it's really, really good. There is a particularly incredible wner in that movie that deserves more attention than I feel like it got. So watch The Vast of Nnight. I think you got some good attention. It's a great indie film. I believe second film is coming out soon. I will double check that and we can promote it. Great Now Spielberg also made his first alien movie at a young age. He was seventeen. It was called Firelight, and it depicted an alien attack on Earth. He was massively inspired by some Glden Age of sci fi movies. The day the Earth stood still the War of the Worlds Earth versus the Flying saaucers from nineteen fifty six. But his love for aliens Lizzy goes beyond the movies, because young Stevie Spielberg wanted to believe. rooted belief that we had been visited this century. Quote, I was a real UFO devotee in the nineteen seventies and really into the UFO phenomenon from reading. For me, it was science, end quote. Was it Chiot of the gos? I don't know if it was Chiot of the gos. And here's why. I think it had more to do with perhaps the books of Jacques Valet. Have you read any like passport to Meonia, for example, from nineteen sixty nine? I haven't read them. 'ause you know, in close encounters is the character played by Francoisz Rfau, the Frenchcientist at the beginning of the movie who shows up. Yes. Yeah. So he's inspired by Jacques Volet. Got it, o. And to be clear, Jacques Voleet not just a ephologist Although I think a lot of people know him from that. That's how I knew him. But also interternet pioneer, astronomer, computer scientist, venture capitalist out of the Bay Area. The point is what's interesting about him in particular is he actually does something that I think you mention scis, but that Mnight Shamalan really taps into in science, which I love. I do too. Passport to Magonia, it explores the potential links between UFO's, cults, religions deemons, angels, ghosts, cryptids, you know what if all of these are manifestations of the same sort of thing being perceived in different ways? And what I think is so interesting about that is when everybody complains about signs and the fact that these aliens have landed on Eth and they're you sensitive to water, it's like because They're actually demons and that ain't aliens. It's demons and angels. 'cause you know, it's all about religion. And so they're sensitive to water because they're a little fiery demons.'s holy water. Holy water Yeah, exactly.use these's priests 'use it's about Gibson. Well, look, I think it's one of the few paranormal type things that I will even allow myself to I like ent. It's fun. And at this point, it feels less like entertaining considering the government is like, man There's aliens.'s like there's definitely something going on. My wife's reading Anny Jacobson's arerea fifty one right now. A lot of the stuff about that is it's really, you know, downed Russian spy planes and whatnot. But I like the idea that there's stuff that we don't understand out there. Definitely. And that the explanation is not just some religious, you know allegory. Right. And I also, you know, you're talking about sort of like archetypes, cryptids, all these things. I think that's why Ancient aliens is so fun and why the worldorld of Worlds is so fun is because these things, they're not new They actually are like more ancient than we are and that exerts this kind of control over humanity That's almost a relief in some ways because it's like,, oh, this was before we even got here. Yeah, exactly And it's funny because Spiberg in this movie makes a specific choice to imply some sort of ancient aliens connection by having these machines have been buried underground for so long. Right Which is not part of the HG Well's book Let's get back to the nineties Spielberg buys a script and says, Oh man, this would make an amazing movie. And I think in part, it's not that he maybe he'd forgotten that this movie existed. I really think it's the timing, right? He's just made Jurassic Park. He has just brought dinosaurs to life. He also just made Schindler's list. You know, maybe he's ready to make a war movie. He will go on to make Sving Private Ryan very shortly after this. The technology's ready, but Roland Eemmerick beats him into the punch Lzie. withith what movie that we're gonna to cover later this summer? We will not go quietly into that good night. We will not vanish without a fight Independence Day. It's one of the best speeches a president's ever. My president. That's my president. Bill Pullman, Iependence Day. Tuly I would nominate him in heart beat. So Spielberg moves on But as HG. Wells puts it in his book Intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this intellectual property, with envSs. So around the same time that Spielberg's twying with the idea, of course a lot of other people are thinking about War of the worlds. Screenwriter Peter Briggs turned it into a spec screenplay. Now he's probably best known now for adapting Hellboy with Gerald Dl Toro, but back in the early nineties, he was very known for aliens and Predators. Specifically, he wrote an early draft of alien versus Predator based on the Dark Horse comic that sold the twentieth century Fox. Now that movie would languish in development hell for years and it would not get turned into a film until the I think early to mid two thousands But Briggs, who must have been a glutton for punishment, decides that he's going to do a spec adaptation of War of the Worlds that is faithful to the period. eighteen ninety eight, and he even incorporates research material he pulled from the University of Indianapolis that Welles had cut before publishing it.. For example, Welles' hero was supposed to die in a blaze of glory after using explosives to take out one of the tripods in the original version. Okay, which happens in this movie. But then he changed it So spec scripts are almost never made, as you know, Lizzie. They're often used as calling cards or samples. And in fact, Briggs would use this as a sample. Briggs' agent sent it to Paramount, who owns the rights, the cinematic rights for War of the Worlds. And according to Briggs, they flipped out for it Why Kenneth Brana had just approached Paramount about adapting War of the Worlds also. So Paramount says, Oh, great, perfect timing Here's a script, and they sent Briaks the script to Kenneth Ranna. And Ranna, who is also working with actor Brian Blest looved it. They say, this is great. Let's go make it And then they hit a snag And it's the same damn snag we hit on the Iron Giant, which is that this damn movie had been turned into a concept album in the seventies and the rights got all screwed up. So back in the late seventies, musician Jeff Wayne decided to do something unusual. He turned War of the Worlds into a concept album It took a few months but he was able to lock down the rights. In fact, quote, except for the book and movie rights, the latter of which are owned by Paramount, I own everything else, including, as best as we could determine, merchandising. Oh dear So Jeff Wayne's musical version of The the War of the Worlds, that's the full title was released in nineteen seventy eight. and Lizzie, it's narrated by Richard Burton. Hell yeah It's really fun. I listen to the whole thing. The music's awesome. The narration, Richard Burton's voice is great. Yeah, he does have a great voice. Honestly, it's kind of a blast. I'm not a big fan of concept albums generally. They're just not my style, but it's gott to be better than space, jazz. No, it's yes. No. is it's really fun. Here's the thing, Mar of the Worlds was public domain in the United States, but not in the UK. And European copyright law had just changed. The book was originally set to become public domain fifty years after the author's death. Wells died in forty six, so that means it would become public domain in nineteen ninety six, perfect timing. But then that period got expanded to seventy five years. So the merchandising rights get stuck with Jeff Wayne for another twenty five years So according to Braggs, they get Jeff Wayne into a room to try to make a deal. They're saying, Jeff, we want to make this movie. He says, I will sell you these rights on one condition. You make this movie A musical. The project died. No. I wish they said yes. Now Briggs claims that in nineteen ninety eight, an executive at Cruise Wagner Productions, which is Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's production compompany, which they formed in nineteen ninety two, reached out about the script. Now, I don't think this necessarily means Tom Cruise was asking about it. This is just an executive at his company. Sure. Their job is to find material that would be suitable for Tom you know to star in or to produce I think War of the Worlds makes a lot of sense for this type of stuff that he's doing. So War of the Worlds was perfect except Jeff Wayne And they say, yeah, you know, we can't do anything with this. But Jeff Wayne may have inadvertently protected the property because Hallmark was also interested in turning the War of the Worlds into a probably not super high budget miniseries. What? But they couldn't get past Jeff Wayne. So that version also died. Do the aliens come home for Christmas and realize that their true love has been in the bar all along? Yeah, they realize it was the guy that they went to high school with who's like, we's flannels? and he's pretty hot. Yeah. It was only a matter of time before Hollywood's biggest star made a movie with its biggest director. Now that was not War of the Worlds. Lizzie, when did Tom Cruise and Stehven Spielberg finally hook up? That would be a minority report. That's right. onene of the greatest science fiction films in my opinion, ever made. It's great. An enormous commercial and critical success that Jan DeBont will always say should have been his movie. I believe the story is that Jan DeBont was originally supposed to direct that and Spielberg was gonna direct The haunting. And then they Spielberg was like, what if we flipped? stole minority. Well Yan, that's your fault For Spielberg, I'm guessing it was a welcome turn after the somewhat muted reception of two thousand one's AI artificial intelligence. And I'm guessing these two men probably bonded over the fact that both of them didn't have a great time working with Stanley Kubrick in theirive endeavors with eyes wide shot and AI artificial intelligence. Yeah. Now for Cruz, it was perhaps also a nice distraction from his divorce from Nicole Kidman, alth I think based on the timing, that divorce happened basically concurrent to or maybe even after the filming of Minority Report, which had a lengthy post production process. But the point is, these two knew they wanted to run it back. I mean, Minority Report was a total success. It was a huge success. Very good. According to Crz, Spielberg pitched three ideas, and the third idea was War of the Ws Cruz loved science fiction films. He hadn't starred a lot of them, but he loved them. And I want to read you a quote, Lizzie. and I want you to put yourself in the mindset of I just listened to that amazing primer on scientology that what went wrong released on Friday, which we recorded ten minutes ago. Yeah. so here's the quote. You look at science fiction and the role that science fiction has actually played played in our culture because they were dreaming and pushing for the space race. It was the science fiction writers during that pul fiction era that were writing about space and then creating that tryrying to get them to not think about blowing each other up, quote So he's talking about our suupreme leader. Maybe, it's possible that there is an illusion here to the founder of scientology, El Ron Hubbard, who, when he published Dionetics, positioned it as an alternative to nuclear proliferation and escalation. Right. And if you guys don't know, El Ron Hubbard was a prolific science fiction writer, in fact, the most prolific author of all time, according to the Guness book, Old Records Cruz and Spielberg already had another project in development together Lizzie. It was called Ghost Soldiers, and it's kind of a perfect synthesis of both of their sensibilities, at least as an audience would see them It's the story of a group of Ranger volunteers who in January of nineteen forty five set out to rescue over five hundred POWs in a Japanese camp in the Philippines s basically saving Private Ryan means mission impossible. It makes a lot of sense, and writer Josh Friedman had as of january two thousand two, already written the first draft a little bit on Freedman. He'd studied film at USC in the nineties, he got an agent, dropped out, sold a spec script called Dead Drop. That eventually became the nineteen ninety six movie, Chain Reaction, which I've never seen Starring Keiona Reeves, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weiss. I will watch it for her. The IMDB logline reads, Two researchers in a green alternative energy project are put on the run when they are framed for murder and treason And interesting, there' actually kind of a few of these weird sort of like alternative energy thrillers from the time. I'm also reminded, did you ever see the Val Kilmer movie The Saint? Yes. Where he plays like the master thief who's attempting to steal the cold fusion technology or whatever? Yeah. Anyway, the point is, the story goes, nine other writers worked on this script and all that was left was a single line of Morgan Freeman's dialogue. Would you like to hear the one line that was left of Josh Friedman's doing Yes. Okay, here we go I'm your friend That's it I'm your friend I'm your friend Eddie Yikes. That was the only line left, but it didn't matter. The project changed his life. He was hired to adopt Ghost soldiers. I think this was actually before Spielberg and Crwz were attached, but Ghost soldiers died in development. There may have been too much competition. You had the Great Raid at Mirramax. You gotta change that title. It's also possible that you know Spielberg he hadd been involved in Band of Brothers, which had come out around this time and maybe he was thinking I gotta move on from World War War two. he also I believe was developing Munich, which was going to follow the murder of the Israeli Olympians at the nineteen seventy two Munich Olympics He may just have wanted to move away from this arena. Again, it didn't matter for Josh Friedman, because the point is, Spielberg says, hey, why don't you tackle War of the Worlds? But he doesn't want to do it as a period adaptation. So Lizzy, what happened at the beginning of the two thousands that seemingly changed the course of everything in the United States and has continued to define us and certainly changed a lot of movies in Hollywood september eleventh. Exactly. S Spielberg said These films came out in response to our fears about the Soviet Union and a possible nuclear war. He's talking about the original War of the Worlds. Now, in the shadow of nine eleven, it felt that War of the Worlds had a special significance I think I made this picture because I thought this story's time had come again So he tells Friedman, I want you to do a post nine eleven take on War of the Worlds. And Friedman goes off and writes it across two thousand two and two thousand three. Hands in the script Silence Paramount sides don't want to pay any more steps. Green light the movie, He says he left and went on to other projects. Now, I don't think that's because Paramount didn't want to make this movie. I get the sense that it's because Spielberg and Cruz wanted to bring on a different writer. And let's talk about the first writer that they considered. It's possible they considered him before Friedman. It's possible this came after. We could not nail down the timeline, but we do know that it is a director who also loves aliens, Lizzy He loves aliens, He loves mystery boxes. He loves aliases. It is JJ Abrams. JJ Abrams. Aliens and aliases. And Super eight is obviously a very Spielbergian alien movie that he would later make Sometime in two thousand three, he gets a call. Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, and Paula Wagner want to meet you. And he says, Is this a prank? And they say, No, come in And they bring him in and they say, do you want to write War of the Worlds? And he says I can't because I am stuck making this show called Lost. and I have no idea what's happening. We don't have a script and he was so busy on Lost that he had to say no to War of the World. He said he felt like he had committed career suicide Here I was doing this pilot that I didn't have a script for when instead I could have been working with Spielberg and Cruz. A little did he know Loss would become not only the most expensive pilot of all time, but one of the most successful shows at the time. Abrams is out. Spielberg needs a sure thing He needs the man who'd helped him make the dinosaurs walk the earth. Jurassic Park. David come come here. Yeah, that's the song. Yeah. So Josh Friedman and David Kepp are around the same age, but they were at very different points in their career. Lizzie, you mentioned. Jurassic Park. Since ' ninety three, let me just read you some of the films that David Kepp wrote between nineteen ninety three and two thousand three Jurastic Park, Carlito's Way, That was the same year The paper, Mission Imossible, The Lost World, Stir of Echoes, Panic Room Spiderman. Yeah, just some small movies. Just a few little indie flicks. So some sources say that Spielberg discarded Friedman's script, but we'll get into that in a little bit. So in January of two thousand four Spielberg, Cruise and Kepp meet to talk about the story. And they establish a couple of things. Number one, Cruz's character, he's just gonna be a dad with a blue collar job We're going to show them being really good at that job But it's not going to come back later. great. Okay. canan I give you my theory? Yes. I think that originally, in the third act, there had to have been something. He was going to operate one of the tripods. Yes. Of course. It's exactly set up for that. L that is why he is doing it. He was gonna to operate it to dump their diarrhea. Yes or whatever. He was gonna hit the diarrhea dump But it was clearly set up for that. It has to be. And then they just clearly abandoned. They decided we're not gonna to do that. And I'm glad they actually didn't do that because that would have been too heroic for the character. Yeah, but also then you didn't need know the extended sequence of him dropping So weird and funny because they make a point of showing how good and like adept he is at operating the controls of this crane There's no way it wasn't supposed to come back. Here's my theory. They cut it from the climax and they said, should we cut it from the beginning? And they said, this guy's kind of such a shitty dad for a lot of this movie. should be good at She should be good at something in the beginning. Yeah. And they kept it. Or Tom Cruise had been like I just learned how to operate a crane for the last six months like I'm gonna do it in this movie. That's true. Either way, it's fine. They also agree about what they don't want in the movie. They said no destruction of famous landmarks, no shots of world capapitals, no scientists or government officials as main characters. I think that's really cool. Yeah. This is going to be an anti alien invasion movie. They take all the tropes that we normally see and they say, we don't want to see them. It's going to be big but intimate with a very specific point of view. If Ray doesn't see it, we don't see it I think that's really effective. They feel like I think it's. They really feel like ants. Like even if there is a plan to deal with the aliens, we have no idea what it is. And of course, Lizzy, by the nature of the source material, the aliens are going to be mean. And as we discussed in Temple of Doom, Spielberg always seems to be suffering a little bit of cognitive dissonance when he's dealing with material that is darker than his normal sensibility And he has a quote here that I think is interesting. He says, My true nature makes me want to make ET in close encounters. But the audience in me wants to make war of the worlds. For the sheer excitement, nothing comes close to warfare between the human race and an extraterrestrial one. It's bigger than life. And it's interesting that like I think there's the movies that he feels are maybe more in his wheelhouse, which could be an ET, for example, as opposed to the movies that he really remembers fondly from his childhood that really like made him want to go make movies, for example, which maybe had a bit more of an edge to them But what's interesting too about it, Lizzy is that do you know that ET started as a much darker movie? I vaguely remember us talking about this. Yeah. You talked about this on Poltergeist a little bit. Yeah we will talk about this when we cover ET, but it originally was supposed to be a dark sequel to close Encounters of the Third kind called Night Sies. Right. And then it of course became something very different. So KP starts working on the script, and Spielberg's very secretive about it He would only hand out sections. And according to Keppp, quote, like only five people read the whole script. He would only give people portions of the script. And then, after fifty years of rumblings, false starts and roadbocks, the War of the World gets an adrenaline shot right in the ass. Cruise and Spielberg are at this time two of the busiest men in Hollywood, and they've got a couple of big movies lined up. Tom Cruise has Mission Imossible three, or MI three, and Spielberg has what will become Munich So after Abrams turns down War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise calls him up. starts inviting him to concerts and get togethers. Abrams starts returning the favor. Abrams says, It's like we were dating. I ended up inviting him to my birthday party. Tom shows up and he is the nicest guy in the history of all time to my friends, especially my most cynical friends. Everyone sees it and gets it. He's a sweetheart, he's real. It was the most normal fun time, end quote Lizzy, like your face was like, what's he doing? What's he doing? What is your first thought? What's he doing? I don't know. My first thought was like, is he recruiting him? to scientology? That was my first thought, but no. I don't feel like Tom Cruise has to do that. He's up to something else. He is up to something else One thing I love about my husband, David is that this man cannot pass up a good deal. As soon as he sees a yard sale, it's like a tractor beam is pulling him in and he cannot resist. And his deal hunting obsession has rubbed off on me, except I'm not pulling my way through cobweb covered yard saales, I'm on whatnot Whatnot is the number one live shopping app in the US where shopping happens in real time with real people, real conversations, and incredible deals. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how great the deals are. You almost never pay full price on name brand perfume, clothes, makeup, handbags, jewelry, and so much more. Plus, it's fun. You're connecting with sellers and other shoppers. It's like hanging out and shopping with friends I just got an amazing Goodfellass t shirt from Treasure Chest TX for nine dollars that I can't wait to wear and a vintage Gucci cross body bag from the Don's luxury that I picked up for like half the price of other retailers. I am obsessed with it. Everything arrived so quickly and in excellent condition. Download what notot today and get twenty dollars off and free shipping on your first purchase Search What notot W H A T N OT in the App store, sign up and start finding the best deals on the products you love with twenty dollars off and free shipping on your first purchase. What if a marginal gain unlocked greater performance. What if an insight in data change everything at a RAMco Our focus on detail helps us deliver reliable energy to millions across the world Because margins aren't marginal. They' where we can truly push the limits of what's possible ArAamco, an integrated energy and Chemicals company Lear more at arramco. com And Abrams agent calls him after Cruise and Abrams have been dating for a while and he says, Are you aware of the conversations? And he says, what We're not dating. What conversations? And he says, No, no, no. This conversation is that Tom wants you to direct Mission Impossible three, whichich would be a huge move for JJ Abrams. We are now in the summer of two thousand four. So David Fincher had been attached to that film briefly, then Joe Carnanghan And now Cruise wants to bring on Abrams, The movie' B been delayed, and Paramount's like, we need our next mission impossible. Spielberg has decided to postpone Munich to take another crack at the script. and so all of a sudden, they have a very brief window where Cruise is available before Mission Imossible I three because Abrams is working on loss and needs to get up to speed, and Spielberg's waiting for the script on Munich And so they decide, what if we just make this really tiny indie film called War of the Worlds during this break? This one hundred thirty million dollars indie film. So in August of two thousand four, Variety reports, following forty eight hours of frenzied negotiations, War of the World starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg has been set on a crash pre production schedule hundred and thirty million dollars budget. They have just ten weeks of prep, less than half of what they would normally get for a movie this size. That's crazy. Lizzy, they need to hit a november two thousand four start date for filming. It's August of two thousand four And they're going hit a June of two thousand five release. That's some twilight new Mon timeline there. That's ten months. That's crazy Kathleen Kennedy later said Spielberg turned to her and said, Don't freak out when you look at the script. Just recognize that there are three people in the movie. That's the heart of the film Every now and then there are a thousand people running in the background. E quote. So on the one hand, I think Spielberg is sensitive to this in a sense, because he said, you know, this wasn't a cram course for War of the Worlds. He said, this was my longest schedule in about twelve years. We took our time. I think he means production schedule, like shooting schedule. Yeah. This is a crazy tyight delivery in terms of prep and post production because he also said, I've never prepped a movie this quickly. Yeah, it's crazy. I think he wants to make it clear I'm not phoning it in, you can see it in the movie. He's obviously not phoning it in. This is a crazy tight timeline. So how does he pull it off? Well, obviously, he's not going to do it alone. He brings in, as we mentioned, a lot of the people he's worked with before, composer John Williams, his cinematographer, Janis Kaminsky, editor Michael Kahan, costume designer Joanna Johnson, production designer Rick Carter. As you mentioned, List see, the sets in this movie, the build. Really great. Aazing The airplane crash that when it crashes into the suburban neighborhood, that one's particularly incredible. Yeah. It's fun too, because it's also just what JJ. Abrams does on and the pilot. Also stunt coordinator Vick Armstrong, we should mention who we just talked about on Temple of Doom. And of course indndustrial light and magic. So they basically rolled off the Star Wars prequels onto War of the Worlds. And one of the first calls that Spielberg made was to Dennis Murin, the FX supervisor who we've talked about on a number of episodes. One of the next calls was to a man named Dan Gregwar Spielberg had met Gregwar at Skywalker Ranch sometime in two thousand three where he was doing something that had been done for a couple of years but was still pretty new in Hollywood Previsualiz So Lizzie, we've talked about prevising before, basasically creating a digital previsualization. think a very rudimentary animated version of what a sequence will look like in a movie. He was doing this with George Lucas on Revenge of the Sith. and he was doing it digitally in many instances on a laptop and it would take a matter of hours, not days to render this thing out And so this process allowed Lucas to basically look over his shoulder and like direct the scene right there. And so for War of the Worlds, one of the ways they were able to kind of move quickly is Gregwire would take photos throughout location scouting, he'd recreate the locations on his laptop, and then Spielberg could quote fly the set, meaning you, he could explore the set and nail his angles before they ever got to set. And Lizzie, we talked about how meticulous Spielberg is with storyboarding. This is obviously taking that to the next level It's essentially three D storyboarding. Exactly. And you know, he would then send these to IM. ILM could get a head start on mapping out their effects. But I just want to be clear, this was not, I don't think this was entirely new to Spielberg. I have seen the previses for do you remember in the minority repeport when the spiders are going through the apartment to find him in the bathtub and it's that amazing crane shot going over all the rooms? Yeah. I'm ninety nine percent sure they prevised that entire sequence because that's used with a motorized crane that they're doing that with I believe he's used this technology before, but never to this extent. And did you say that Dennis Murin was the one at ILM who was heading this up? No, this was Dan Gregwire, who's then sending things to Denis Murin at ILM. I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure Dennis Murin was also heading up the team behind the T two in Ttererminator, which makes a lot of sense given the tentacled creature that appears later. Oh Yeahah, I mean,is he's a veteranon Ething They're also setting up crews to work simultaneously on the East and West cooast. So basically they're going to shoot east Coast first for location work and then they'll come back to LA after winter break to shoot, you, stage work and anything remaining. And Spielberg has to consistently resist the huge temptation to go bigger, right? And this may have in part been why they omitted potentially a We could not verify scene in which he operates one of the tripods, Tom Cruise. Yeah. I'm just it has to be that. It has to be. But one example, the big hillside battle, Lizz, right where Justin Chatwin runs off, You're not my real dad. He goes up the side of the hill and Tom Cruise is trying to pull him back and we're seeing the tanks, you know, along the top of the hill. Yeah. He had actually prevaged going over the hill and seeing the full extent of like the quote war of the worlds, right But we never do in the final film because he had to commit to the personal point of view of the family, which I actually think is a really effective choice. Yeah. It's like I like that Cruise never sees over that. He doesn't go over the hill. You know, it's consistent with his character. Also ten months, Steven, ten months. So let's talk about casting briefly. So Cruise is obviously in from the start, but we should note that audiences were just starting to get a taste in a sense of the non heroic So if you go back to Cruz's origins, and especially you look at you know some of his roles in the nineties, he played some really complex characters in a really interesting way. You think of something like Rainman in the late eighties or even Jerry MagGuire in the nineties, pretty flawed individuals. And then in the early two thousands, as we discussed in our primer a little bit, you see him move a little bit more into More of the Mission Iossible world of you know, something like the last samurai, for example. safer roles for sure. Somewhat, or you know, more popcorn. But he had just done Michael Mann's collateral, which came out in August of two thousand four, where he's not only an antagonist, he's the silver Fox antagonist, which is a totally new look for Cruz. He's good at it. He's very good. So I wonder if Cruz at the time was wanting to explore Darker roles because if you look at something like collateral and War of the Worlds, these are two movies where he's playing far more dark or flawed characters than some of the other movies around him. Yes But they're not like when you're talking about the early exploration of his parts and you're thinking of things like Rainman or Inview with the Vampire where he's really pushing himself and trying to do things that are very different from Tom Cruise. I would argue with both collateral and War of the Worlds, he is fully in the lane that he will, I think, remain in where he's kind of always Tom Cruise. But yes, he is definitely He's mean Tom Cruz in this one. He's angry Tom Cruz. He's angry Tom Cruz. So around the same time, Tays's report that Dakota Fanning, ten years old, has been cast as his daughter. and for Dakota Tom Cruise, Som Cruz. She'd acted across Sean Penn and I am Sam. Denzel Washington in Man onn Fire, Brittney Murphy in Uptown Girl, Mike Myers in the Cat in Hat, and Kevin Bacon and Charlie Tharron in something called Trapped that I didn't even know was a movie. The point is, even when the movies weren't great, although Man onn Fire is, in my opinion, Banning was always praised as a natural. as youag. She's a scenes stealer in this movie. Yeah. He basically, I'm sure Spielberg gave her the tape of Willie Scott and said sccream that much, but make it more watchable for Lizzie.. Thank you So the main two roles are set. Now I read, you know, the remaining cast wasn't set until a month out from shooting. I don't think that's that unusual. It's not that unusual in my experience. Not from what we've seen. No. Early October, Tim Robins is in talks to join the cast. You could argue he'd peaked in the nineties to player, Shwhank Rdemption and a lot more, but he's making a comeback. Lizzy, he just won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Do you remember which movie Was it Mstic River? That's right, and they said play the same character in this movie. Oh no, exxcept this time, it's aliens. That's right. So he'd also worked with Tom Cruise, Top Gun, and he'd never worked with Steven Spielberg, which is kind of crazy to me. I would imagine he would have totally crossed paths with them, but he hadn't. so this was the first time. You know actually Wh I find the basement sequence with Tim Robbins to be strange on many levels It feels out of left field. I always love Tim Robbins. It feels like a bit of a non secquitter in this movie. Yeah, it feels like a little bit of a weird distraction. He's just not set up, You know what I mean? He just kind of comes out of nowhere. No, But I will say I do like them opposite each other because of the size difference because there are a couple of moments where they are, you know, physically at odds and it's like it's very clear in that moment that like, I'm sorry, Tom Cruise, you are not overpowering Tim Robins. Human giant Tim Robbins. He's huge. And like that is interesting to watch because in those moments the character of Ray clearly recognizing, I cannot physically overpower this person. so I'm going to have to figure something else out. And he does, and he bludgeons him with a shovel. Yeah He's also not like wispy thin the way he was in the nineties too. L no, he's big. Tim Robins has thickened out by this point in his career. So he's an imposing person. But Robins was an early choice along with Australian actress, Miranda Otto. This is what I was gonna to say at the beginning is that Miranda Otto's entire role in this movie is just to look hot pregnant for Tom Cruise to be like It' a good look on you. And she's like, really? And he's like Yeah. Well let's talk about it. What was she most famous for right at this moment, Lizzie? Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings, Awen, Lord of the Rings. Not a man. Die now school. So she happens to be on a quick trip to LA. and her agent calls and says, Steven Spielberg wants to meet you. Again, she thinks this is a joke. She's also pregnant. So she meets Spielberg and she says, Oh, she's actually pregnant. So she says, I had to say to him, I don't know if I can do this because I'm pregnant. Spielberg says, no, that's great Because there's barely any relationship here to begin with, and it feels like something if you're pregnant. And so they wrote it into the movie. They just wrote her pregnancy into the movie. It's just that it's such a weird line, but yes, I know. But I think what they were trying to do again is like he's kind of such a derpy deadbeat dad out of this movie, whichich again, I really like, that I think they wanted to say he's not resentful of his ex wife in that way. Like he's fallen short as a father, but I like that they said They don't need to be fighting or have baggage. You know what I mean on that front? Yeah, she seems to get along with him decently well. Yeah. and like he's moved on. And I like the new husband is just like, I'll be outside because you guys have to do your thing. I liked that element of it. It felt like actually a realistic mature portrayal of divorce as opposed to what we normally get in the movies. And also when the brother is like, you just chose Boston because you're just trying to dump us on mom so you can leave and fend for yourself. And Tom Cruise is basically like Correct. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you really don't wna be with these kids. That's true. Also fun thing Lizzie, you haven't seen the fifty three version, but her parents, who are just at the very end of the film, that's Jean Berry and Anne Robinson, who are the two leads from the fifty three version. Oh, cool. I thought that was really nice. Last but not least, Justin Chatwin As Robbie. So Spielberg said he looked for a long time to find somebody who threw a baseball as poorly as Tom Cruise. I'm just kidding. Justin throws it way better. Wow, Michael Khonn, give him an Oscar for the way he edits around Tom Cruise' throwing motion in this movie. It's tough. It's like in the natural Robert Redford's son at the end of the movie. and you're like, So he's not a natural. but that's okay Anywhiew, Justin Chawin, it's interesting. They say they searched far and wide, which I'm sure they did, but we couldn't find any other names that they considered Chowan also had a Spielberg connection by way of Dreamworks So his big debut was in the two thousand five film, The Chum Scrubber, which was an independent film directed by Ari Posen, which featured Jamie Bell as the lead, Lou Taylor Pucci, and Rory Colkin All of whom also could have been great in this role. Yeah I wonder if somebody just gave Spielberg the DD of the Chum scubver? It was like pick one. Yeah. Who knows. Also, I always confuse that one with Thumbbssucker, which also meue Tayor Pucci and That's the Mike Mills one. Yes. I like both movies. I prefer Thumbbsucker. I like Thumbsucker. It's good. Anyway, Chum S sccarver was distribut by Go Fish Pictures, Artouse distribution arrm of DreamWorks. Also, I believe it was produced by your favorite guy, Larence B Bender. No Quick note on Dreamworks, company founded in nineteen ninety four, we've talked about at Spielberg, Katsenberurg, Geffin SKG. Not a financial runaway success. Geffen later admitted they came close to bankruptcy twice. They had planned to build a backlot in two thousand. that fell apart. They took huge losses on Sinbad Legend of the Seven seeas. Oh yeah one hundred twenty five million dollars loss Shrek Tube underperformed on DVD, Cat and the hat bombed I just want to make the point. while Spielberg is prepping for War of the Worlds, Dreamworks animation was spun off into a separate company. And for much of two thousand five, DreamWorks was negotiating a deal with NBC Universal, parent compompany of Universal Pictures to buy Dreamworks. And if you remember, Lizzie, Universal was the home of Amlin, Steven Spielberg's production company, and where Stehven has made you, many of his biggest hits, obviously, going back to jaws moreore on that in a bit So they have a seventy two day shoot across Connecticut, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and California. For the crashed plane, they pay sixty thousand dollars for a decommissioned Boeing seven hundred forty seven, much like in Lost. They spend two hundred thousand dollars to transport it from Victorville, California to Universal Studios. If' you're using a helicopter and a series of lorries escorted by the police, and you can still see it on the tour at Universal.. Have you seen it Lizzie? Yeah Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's fun. One of my favorite is if I have a general on Universal and I like walk the backl lot and see the tour and I'm like, I wonder what they think I do. And then I'm like nothing. you're going to a general. Anyway, they had one plane, but they had sixty different versions of Riseds leather jacket. and although we couldn't find an exact number, they had a lot of extras who may have been preoccupied by the notion that just maybe they'd get to be acting across Tom Cruise, the biggest movie star in the world And it was not easy work. They are screaming and running from imaginary tripods. It is cold, it is icy. They are soaking these environments with water because it's supposed to always look rainy. And there's a bit of an apocryphal story that may confirm our instincts about Steven Spielberg's sensibilities.Qote, Steven Spielberg personally instructed extras to look more frightened, explaining that they should turn around and think Oh fuck, to which someone said, Mrter Spielberg isn't this movie rated PG thirteen? too which he reportedly said, PG thirteen movie R rated director. Okay. If that's true, that's the funniest line I have ever he. cool dad. This is something like that. Dakota Fanning turned eleven on set. Tom Cruise reportedly gave her a cell phone as a birthday present, which I can say as a parent is a terrible birthday gift. Do not give my kid a phone. Ask her parents first Now the bigger concern was not the cell phones that Tom Cruise brought to set. What do you think he may have brought to set, Lizzie that may have caused a stir U I don't know. Scientology. Okay spepecifically a scientology tent. So if you guys missed our primer on scientology and its history, Tom Cruise joined the practice, the faith, the religion in the nineteen eighties. He was introduced to it by his first wife, Mimi Rogers. kind of distanced himself from the religion relatively speaking during the nineties while he was married to Nicole Kidman, they divorced in two thousand one He was brought back into the fold. You mentioned he received a very prestigious medal from them. that was videotaped and later released in two thousand eight. Very important. He was very much obviously the face of scientology at this point The Scientology tent It was there, just in case. accccording to Cruz, anybody wanted to read some religious material or get an assist. Now, in scientology, an assist is sometimes described as spiritual first aid. They're performed at disaster sites to quote, help the individual overcome the effects of loss, shock and trauma, and speed recovery by addressing the spiritual and emotional factors related to illness and injury. Oh my God, I can't imagine the conversations on the production team when they found out that Tom Cruise wanted to bring a scientology tent You gotta let him do it, but yeah, a less generous interpretation of what an assist is is you're proselytizing to people when they're the most vulnerable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, indeed, Pying on the week. Like when they've been standing in the cold all day hoping for a chance to work with their favorite actor. Maybe you go to the tent hoping you can talk to Tom Cruz We don't know that. I'm just suggesting it When he was asked about the tent before the film's release, Tom Crw said, I also had a cappuccino tent on set and I made sure the crews were well fed too. And if somebody wanted an assist from a scientology volunteer, it was there for them. People are curious about it. They're always asking me about it. They want to know what scientology is. Now to be fair, I have no doubt that he was very generous with the crew and the cast. Yeah, that's a known thing about him. Every story I've heard is very consistent that he is very generous with the people that he works with to the you learns everybody's names. he's very formal, very polite with everybody. He seems very dedicated to his work and the people he works with But, either toward the end or just after filming, he invited twenty film execs to a four hour tour of three scientology facilities in LA. I don't know who went, I don't believe Steven Spielberg did. There's no way. While Cruz was trying to turn El Ron Harard's vision into a reality, ILM is doing the same for Steven Spielberg. And from start to finish, they have seven months to complete all of the special effects for this movie. That's insane. They're working in parallel with production. So Gregoire is on set with a backpack with his previs gear Spielberg's team makes sure that they shoot the effect heavy sequences first. Yeah, whichich on the one hand is great for ILM, but that's really hard for production when you only have ten weeks of prep, right? So it's like you have to balance the needs of posts and the needs of the production team. Well, it's hard on the actors too to have to jump directly into that. It's hard on everybody. It's just so hard. So he would shoot and edit, then deliver the shots to ILM, they'd send them back to review and approve during production Now again, he's done stuff like this before. If you remember Lizzie, he's approving Jurassics Park visual effect shots while he's on the set of Schindler's list Yeah in Poland So the entire film from prep to Dellivery had to be finished in ten months. The DJA standard for a director's cut, Lizzie, do you know how many weeks it is Is it nine weeks? It's ten weeks for a movie of this scale for a smaller budget movie, it's six to eight weeks. They had twelve weeks for all of posts production Edit, sound score effffects, color, mix delivery. This is bananas. Was this like an exercise in Can we do it? Well, Spielberg and ILM were moving fast. The problem is Lizzie Two independent studios across town were moving even faster. because I buried the lead There was not one War of the Worlds film released in two thousand five There were not two War of the Worlds films released in two thousand five There were three What W of the Worlds films released in two thousand five If scientology can feel a bit like a pentecostal knockoff jinned up by a prolifically pulp or hacky pulp writer, perhaps it's only fitting that Tom Cruise's A movie would be effectively ripped off by a pair of savvy B movie distributors while they're making War of the Worlds. Pend Dragon Pictures was making the classic War of the Worlds, described as the most accurate of the three adaptations occurring. It's directed by Seattle filmmaker Timothy Fines, whose previous project was called Bug Wars.' not seen it which Forbes called a lesbian exploitation sci fi turkey that got shown in one theater in nineteen ninety seven. Now I did read on one Reddit thread that Heinz had actually gotten a modern adaptation of War of the World's Green lit, but it was cancellled due to nine hundred eleven, but I also read that Heines may have made all of this up because like Elron Hubbard, he was a bit of a fabulist. And at one point, he claimed to have raised forty million dollars from early Microsoft employees to make his version, which just doesn't pass the sniff test. No Now Heinz may have been a bit full of it, but UAV, an obscured distributor of DVD's It turned the business bullshit into an art form. The plan, Lizzie, shipped sixty thousand copies of Heinz's War of the Worlds in mid June just as Paramount was launching into their heavy marketing for Spielberg's War of the Worlds. and then hoped that people would say, This one looks good enough at the video store. How were they getting away? Was the thinking just that they were not gonna sell any merch so it wouldn't matter? Yeah, it's just the DVD Because it's public domain. o. According to Forbes, this was nothing new for UAV. They said the company quote trolls backlogs for old or independently produced movies that ride the cocktails of big studio releases, sharing a star or a theme, then it sells those movies to retailers to push alongside the Hollywood material. For example, twentieth century Fox released the DVD for Master and Commander, starring Russell Crow UAV licensed and redistributed Prisoners of the Sun, a nineteen ninety film in which Crow had a small role, but they made sure to put his face on the box of the V. Got it. Okay. So they're just little parasites They were also known for distributing animated movies that essentially ripped off Disney movies. So not the Lion King, but Kimba, the Lion Prince. Yes. Not Hercules, but the amazing feats of young Hercules. Schercules? Hercules Sercules. Now Dreamworks and Kassenberg had long been accused of stealing from Pixar and Disney think Ats in a bug's life, the emmperor's new groove in the roads El Dorado, finding Nemo in a shark's tail. But UAV took it to another level where maybe down a few levels of the bridge of total freedom. And this strategy was about to spread like a virus through aliens poorly equipped for our environment and cause diarrhea. In the late nineties, Iie film studio, the Asylum was established to make and distribute horror films on DVD as quickly as possible. They would acquire horror films and distribute them, but they were being crowded out by companies like Liongate, which were offering better terms to low budget filmmakers They started making their own movies. and the typical shoot was nine days Now, in the spring of two thousand five, they were taking their time with a special project, their own adaptation of the War of the World. Instead of nine days, Lizzie. eighteen days? They had fourteen days. Wha, bigig money. Steven Spielberg was making a movie faster than he ever had. Director David Latt was getting more time than he'd ever experienced. He even had two days of pickups.. It was luxurious Now Latt said the movie was originally called Invasion, and the idea was just to write a sci fi epic and kind of pull from every kind of invasion movie, including War of the Worlds. But oddly, he had the same instincts as Spielberg. And my understanding is they decided to basically, oh, they're doing War of the Worlds, We should do War of the Worlds. Before his War of the Worlds was released, and before the Spielberg one was released, here's what Lat said You could go any way with this material. You can make a quarter of a billion dollar epic adventure film, which is what I think DreamWorks is going to bring to the table Or you could follow Wells's journey, which is a more personal reflection and drama in a lot of ways. If we had more of a big budget, it may have gone bigger, which may have ruined the film in a lot of ways. What's so interesting is he actually has the same instinct with the material that Spielberg did. Yeah. And to be clear, Latt wasn't just doing this as a cash grab He was like Tom Cruise in scientology. He really believed in this movie I'm so proud of this movie. I really wish I could enter it into some festivals. It's coming out next month though, and it'll be out on the shelves before any of the next big festivals run. We are doing a theatrical screening and I can't wait to see it on the big screen. I watched this movie last night. it's available on YouTube For shot in fourteen days and for what they're trying to do, like are the effects terrible? Yes. L are they laughable sometimes? Yes. The main cast is not bad. It is totally entertaining. Like this movie, I had a totally fun time watching For what it was, You know what I'm saying? Like like a sci fi channel original movie basically is like what this is kind of comparable to It's fun. And Lizzie, it's got Spielbergian DNA because the lead is C. Thomas Howell. who debuted in ET as one of Elliot's older brother, Michael's friends. Yeah. . I'm sure this was very annoying for Spielberg and Paramount. They had not just one but two like knockoffs coming to the f. Yeah, that's crazy. Right as they're releasing their movie, but it's not illegal. As you mentioned, Wells's novel was public domain in the United States. So the studios' lawyers warned UIV. they said, look, if you distribute it in Europe or in Asia, we will sue you because we maintain our copyright there. Right. But UAV said, look Our movies don't and can't compete with studio movies, and Paramount basically agreed But they were still upset They were worried that it was going to confuse people into buying the wrong DVD. Which it did, right? Yes, but Lizziey, Paramount had a bigger concern. S Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise is jumping couches for scientology So in two thousand five, Tom Cruise had started to become a lot more open about his affiliation with scientology and his belief in scientology. He was really becoming a vocal advocate for scientology. Because why? Well. He fired someone. That's right. In two thousand four, Tom Cruise parted ways with his longtime publicist, Pat Kingsley. Yes. And who did he replace her with, Lizzie? His sister. His sister, Leanne Devette. Now, my understanding I was reading this interview with Amy Nicholson is that this was a bit more of a mutual parting of ways in that Cu wanted to be more open about his scientology beliefs. Well and she's like, I'm not doing it. And King said, Yeahah, like I don't know how to manage that. I don't think you should do that is my guess. You know, that was her approach. And so they parted ways, whereas Leanne Devette was a scientologist. And so in hiring her, Cruz was fully embracing that aspect of his life. So they start the press tour. and in April of two thousand five, while Cruz and Spielberg were in Germany promoting the movie, a reporter asked Cruz why he set up the scientology tent on set To be clear, this is an interview with Cruz and Spielberg. so they're both sitting there. I'd like to read an excerpt from the magazine. I don't know. the name of the magazine is, I believe there's Spiegel. And so this is not the interviewer's name. I'm just going to say Spiegel as the magazine's name. So here's a question. We visited one of your locations near Los Angeles and we were amazed to find a fully staffed tent of the scientology organization right next to the food tents for the journalists and extras. , What were you amazed about, Spiegel? Why do you go so extremely public about your personal convictions I believe in freedom of speech. I felt honored to have volunteer scientology ministers on set. They were helping the crew. When I'm working on a movie, I do anything I can to help the people I'm spending time with. I believe in communication. Spiegel, the tent of a sect at someone's working place still seems somewhat strange to us. Mr. Spielberg, did that tent strike you as unusual Spiberg, I'm sure dying inside.. I saw it as an information tent. No one was compelled to frequent it, but it was available for anybody who had an open mind and was curious about someone else's belief system. He's very good in an interview The volunteer scientology ministers were there to help the sick and injured. People on the set appreciated that. I have absolutely nothing against talking about my beliefs, but I do so much more. We live in a world where people are on drugs forever, where even children get drugged, where crimes against humanity are so extreme that most people turn away in horror and dismay Those are the things that I care about. I don't care what someone believes. I don't care what nationality they are. But if someone wants to get off drugs, I can help them. If someone wants to learn how to read, I can help them context again, Cruz at one point claims that scientology did cure his dyslexia If someone doesn't want to be a criminal anymore, I can give them tools that can better their life. You have no idea how many people want to know what scientology is. Spiegel, do you see it as your job to recruit new followers for scientology? Crews. I am a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world I'll stop there So look, aside from the claims, the problem is the conversation ends up becoming entirely about scientology. It's not about the movie, which is what they're there theoretically to promote. Right. because unlike Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruw, as it turns out, is actually really bad at interviews. When he is let off the leash when he's off the leash, Yes reallyally bad at it. Like he doesn't understand how to evade att least at this moment in time, there's like a particular run right here where he keeps kind of getting himself in trouble and I don't doubt that he believes the things he says and he does part of the problem here. Yeah. Again, I'm just putting it in the context of promoting the movie. What's going wrong? you know what I mean with promoting the movie? What's going wrong is that he doubles down and he's imediately on the defense in a very offensive way. Yeah. He's very aggressive, he's very intense. So it comes across poorly. And also like this reporter has a very valid point. like this having a religious presence, you know on a working set is not a good look. My personal opinion is it's wildly inappropriate that no one I would never to have any sort of religious sect on any in my workplace wherever I go. No. Again, there could be exceptions. You could work for a religious institution, obviously or something like that. That's very.ure Or if you need a consultant or advisor because of the nature of the film that you're making, fine but that's a very different situation So a month later on may twenty third Tom Cruise appears on what television show? Lizzie? Oprah. Oprah Now again, he's supposed to be promoting warar of the Worlds. And again, I do think Amy Nicholson makes a really good point in this interview she did with Brooke Gladstone when she was writing her book on Tom Cruise Oprah is the one who keeps pushing him to talk about Katie Holes. he goes for the bait. And she does basically encourage him to get on the couch and like show her how much he loves Katie Holmes. It's interesting. I don't know if I agree with that in actually watching the clip, because she seems. should watch it again? I have. She seems uncomfortable with how much he is kind of in her physical space. I Okaykay. I feel like there's a little bit of like she knows this is good TV. What's going on here? She does, but I think you can tell she is genuinely uncomfortable at the intensity that he's showing and also the way that he is approaching her The timing was not great, regardless of who wanted it in terms of promoting War of the Worlds This is the same month the Huffington Post and the Press Hilton site launched. It's one week after YouTube posted its first video. And so these things are going viral. And then a week later, Lizzy, and we talked about this on the big flop, on june first, two thousand five on Access Hollywood, he criticized Brook Shields for using antidepressants.. Then five days after that, the LA Times ran an article called Control Switch onn with a big photo of ruise's face And it's making this point that Cws had quote returned to normal after the string of unusual behavior, including couch jumping, but that the new normal was kind of different because it included this openness about scientology that was here to stay. And all of this is a distraction in the studio's eyes, right from War of the Worlds. And there's more distraction. Like Pend Dragon films is the classic War of the Worlds being released on DVD. And so people are thinking probably Oh wait, is this the real War of the Worlds or is that the real War of the Worlds? It's interesting. It's not dissimilar from nineteen thirty eight. Is this real? Is this fake? as you know, we think about Orson Wells And then scientology continues to come up, june twenty fourth, Tom Cruise is on the Today Show five days out from the film's release. Lizzy, what does he do here? You're being glib, Matt. You're being glib. He's criticizing psychiatry and he uses the word glib quite a bit. Which to be fair, is Matt Lauower Glib and also a predator? Yes. Yes. Turns out, you're being glib, Matt. Why't we talk about that button in your office that locks the door? Yeah, if only he'd gone there Again, the criticism of psychiatry is not just a Cruian belief. that is very much a scientological belief that he is promoting. It's a core part of the religion. Paramount does not seem like he can keep scientology out of the promotional tour for War of the World. They did keep Josh Friedman out of it, the original screenwriter. So he had not been given credit on any of the marketing materials, but he actually sought WGO arbitration to maintain his credit on the film And he got it. So my understanding is that Kep and the studio pushed for sole credit for Kp, but Friedman, he clearly contributed enough that the WJA awarded him partial credit. Yeah The marketing's done, his name's not on it, but maybe it didn't matter because Lizzy, the reviews actually weren't great. Roger Ebert gave War the worldld's two stars. He called it big and clunky. He said it lacked the zest and joyous energy we expect from Spielberg. And he said he kind of was like, it was almost Spielberg imitating himself. He called out the tentacle scene in the basement as basically the same as the raaptor scene in the kitchen, but just not as good He does use the mirror kind of much in the same way. And he really hated the tripods. The New York Times was more positive. They reminded us that quote, Cruise remains adept at playing either with or against type, depending on how you look at it, a jerk brought low by circumstances beyond his control, which is praise in the most damning way. Generally speaking, the set pieces and effects were praised, but there was a warmth in humanity missing from the movie is what the critics seem to kind of generally say But the audiences didn't seem to care about Cruz's antics or the absence of that Ambblein heart. So War of the Worlds opened huge, Lizzy. sixty five million dollars the opening weekend. it opened on june twenty ninth. It broke Cruise and Paramount's respective single day box office record held by Mission Imossible two. It was Spielberg's fastest film to hit one hundred million dollars, beating out the lost worldorld, Jurassic Park. Wow But perhaps no one was more excited than the folks at Asylum. On june twenty eighth, two thousand five, one day before Paramount's towering tripod hit theaters, they released HG Wells's War of the Worlds on DVD. And as the story goes Blockuster ordered a hundred thousand copies from them. Damnit. Now, the one version I heard was that it was by accident, they thought they were ordering the Paramount one. I don't think that's true. We could not find a primary source on this. We believe it's because Blockbuster knew this strategy worked and people would rent the mockbuster and not go to the theater. I buy that. I don't think that somebody like would have to go through multiple checks and balances before making an order like that. There's no way everybody signed off on that So War the Worlds broke records made six hundred million dollars worldwide. Wow. Some people say that it bolstered Steven Spielberg's career after the dip of the terminal. Yeah, this was a wildly profitable movie. That's crazy. That's not what I thought at all. I think there's this perception around it. Let's get into this a little bit. So it brought in like almost three times what collllateral did, and collllateral was also a successful movie for Tom Cruise But it seems like War of the Worlds was like the beginning of the end for nearly everybody involved. So Lizzie, Spielberg and Cruz never worked together again. Well, you only bring a scientology ten to Steven Spielberg set once. So Spielberg pivoted immediately to Munich, which underperformed and was controversial. Tom Cruz did partner up with JJ Abrams to crank out Mission Imossible three, which became the lowest grossing film in that franchise. Yeah. The NBC Universal deal for Dreamworks fell apart after GE lowered their offer So Viacom enters bidding late in the game. this is Sumer Redstone. and all of a sudden, Spielberg and Geffin find their company in the hands of the Viacom chairman, who was not a friendly face in the way that Universal was. That relationship would not last. That's a story for another day. And the fever pitch around Tom Cruise and scientology reaches its height in November of two thousand five with the release of Have you seen The Trapped in the closet episode of South Park Yes. It literally shows the secret Zenu story like verbatim of scientology with a disclaimer that says, this is what scientologists actually believe, and it makes jokes about Tom Cruise being trapped in a closet. A few months later, Cruz's fourteen year relationship with Paramount came to an end. Sumner Redstone blamed Cruz's public behavior. He said, quote, it's got nothing to do with his acting ability. He's a terrific actor, but we don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot Wow. Now the asylum pivoted and launched an entirely new strategy based on the success of HGLs' The War of the World,'s their next movie, King of the Lost World, released one day before Peter Jackson's King Kong. Wow. And their latest movie, Master of the Universe, releases on the day of this recording two weeks prior to Travis Knight's Masters of the Universe. Wow But Lizzy, I want to take us back for one second to eighteen ninety eight, when two US newspapers published unauthorized serializations of HG Wells's The War of the Worlds. One moved to the action to New York, the other moved it to Boston And HG Wells was pissed because that wasn't true to his story This brings us back to this idea of truth in the real versions of things and what people believe I think one of the reasons that we're collectively, generally, since it's a very small religion, very allergic to scientology, as you mentioned in our primer, is that it's very new. and it doesn't feel real as a result, right? It doesn't have the weight of the older religions that preceded. And you mentioned Mormonism. I think that's one of the criticisms of Mormonism very much. It's like, come on, you found these gold bars in New York in the nineteenth century. This doesn't make any sense. It's not consistent with the way we viewed religion. And I think that follows a lot of the new movements and groups and ult know that we discussed in our primer episode. What's funny is that they're actually both very consistent with the way that you know quote unquote, biblical texts are at times revealed to prophets. It's just that they didn't, I think they failed to capture the correct way to update it for modern times. Yeah, or maybe their timing's wrong by a couple thousand years. but it brings us around to kind of These stories and what we're told and what we choose to believe, and what I had always heard is that Tom Cruise's adherence to scientology and his outlandish behavior on some of these talk shows and whatnot and the expression of his beliefs is what led to this dissolution of his paramount agreement. that this is what they terminated his deal with Cruise Wagnner productrouctions donon't think that's true now So in two thousand five, Paramount released some major flops, Lizzy. The Weatherman, Aon Flux, Get Richher Det Tions, Sahara, Bad News Bears, Elizabeth Town And they had one big hit War of the Worlds, which by one measure was responsible for nearly forty percent of their theatrical revenue from that year. So one measure of their theatrical revenue was one point five billion, W of the world six hundred millionars In two thousand six, much of the same story was true. Mission Iossible three, yes, lowest grossing of the franchise their biggest hit as a studio for that year So what really happened between Tom Cruise and Paramount It wasn't scientology, it was business. So per the Financial Times, the cost of Kruz Wager's overall deal was minimal to eight million dollars a year. In fact, Cruz didn't take an upfront fee for acting or producing in movies, which would be thirty five million dollars or so per movie if he was both acting and producing. What he did get was twenty two percent of the gross revenue on theatrical and TV licensing And more important, twelve percent of the DVD receipts. And that was the sticking point The way this works, Lizzie, I did not know this. Most writers, stars, directors don't get a direct portion of DVD revenue. They get a portion of a royalty. So when that DVD revenue comes into the studio, eighty percent goes to the studio's home entertainment subsidiary and then twenty percent is set aside as like a royalty pool that the other people then participate in. So that twenty percent is treated as gross. So if you were to get twelve percent on DVD receipts normally It would be twelve percent of twenty percent. R, whichich would be two point four percent Cruz was getting twelve percent of one hundred percent accounting. He was getting actual twelve percent or you know, sixty percent of that twenty percent basically. He made over seventy million dollars with that deal on the first Mission Imossible. and he made like thirty million dollars plus on the second Mission Ipossible DVD sales alone. The problem was that the third Mission Impossible didn't make enough money at the box office to justify to make up for the fact that Cruz would control so much of the DVD receipts So they said, drop your DVD fee or we're going to cancel your overall deal at the studio Cruz wouldn't back down from his numbers So they said, great, we're not going to re up. and then Paramount blamed his public antics as being the reason for why they let him go. Interesting. I mean, there is some truth though, this did massively damage Tom Cruise's reputation in a way that didn't seem possible prior to this time. And like if you look at where his career goes after War of the Worlds It takes a pretty big dip until about twenty In twenty eleven, it starts to come back with Mission Imossible Ghost Protocol and then it's a slow grind back up to, you know, Edge of tomorrow, things like that. But in some ways, it kind of never recovered. You know, obviously, he's one of the biggest stars in the world. I'm not talking about financially speaking, but in terms of people thinking of Tom Cruise as like one of the greatest Actors? changed. I think we think of Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise and people have decided that they're willing to accept that, especially as he's hurling himself off of cliffs on motorcycles and things. But this took away a lot of the mystique and it's almost like he had to become okay with just saying, I am who I am, this is me. you don't get anybody else. And I'm going play it very safe. Obviously, I'm still hurling myself out of helicopters, but safe in terms of know, the types of roles that he's taking from here on out. And we really don't see the nuance or the challenges that he gave himself earlier in his career. Yeah, I think it's so interesting that it's hard for me to tell if the tail's wagging the dog, you know what I mean? on this sort of thing. Because I wonder I'm not endorsing Tom Cruz's proselytizing, but I wonder if we would have the same perception of him H the studio had Sumer Redstone not said this guy is committing creative suicide by behaving in the way he's behaving.? Yes, because of the way that this stuff played on, you mentioned Perez Hilton, but like this was Oh no, I know. but I'm saying it continued to be a story because because they dropped him because they dropped him. It was all of the sudden Before, there was always a question, right where it was like, well, does it matter because he seems untouchable, right? He's like a movie star, he will always make the money. So as a result, I feel like there was always the opportunity for this thing to go away in theory. But then when Paramount said, again, publicly, they're saying, you're so weird, We're gonna to drop you. All of a sudden, it was like, o my God, yes, he must be, he is crazy. right? Like I feel like it was the confirmation that everybody was kind of waiting for at the time And yeah, I think people I mean, yes, I completely agree with you. his reputation took a huge hit after this movie He was persona Non Grada for years. I mean, it was really tropic Thunder Yeah, that started to bring him back R in two thousand eight. And he did also, am I correct in thinking he did rehire Pat Kingsley, Isn't that right? No, he hired somebody else. fired his sister. and he did not re hire Pat Kingsley. I can't remember the gentleman's name but he did bring on some it was kind of a disaster is my understanding with Leandvil.. and And he brought in somebody else after that Yeah. ye. I mean, it's very interesting because the fact is everybody was aware that he was a part of this prior to this moment. And then you have in this moment Tom Cruise reaching this level of success where he is comfortable enough to go This is me. Like this is what I believe. This is what I'm really like and the whole world went You Yeah what's funny is again, it is unusual and I do find it off putting in the interviews. like there' an intensity and a conviction that is very like it's just very odd to me. But what's weird is like the couch jumping thing, for example I think people would now almost find it endearing. You know what I'm saying? Like we're almost through the looking glass in a sense, compared to that moment. Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. But I think it's hard to rankle it with like what we now also know about allegedly what went on in terms of his relationships with both Nicole Kitman but particularly Katie Holmes What I kept thinking when I was watching going clear was Damn, he's so charming because I forget, I forget all of this shit about Tom Cruise. And that's what made him successful. It's not that the information wasn't available. it's that it was so easy to forget it or brush it aside because he is so charming and charismatic when he understands how to turn that on. But when that laser is pointed in the wrong direction And he is actually allowed to sort of expose this element of himself. It is so disconcerting. And look, I think he's an amazing actor. He's an incredible movie star. I love watching Tom Cruise. And then I watch Go Clear and I'm like, I am so uncomfortable so uncomfortable. Yeah, it's such an interesting moment. and it's interesting that we all forgave him, you know, and welcomed him back Well, isizzy? I gott to ask you. What went right on this one of the three War of the worldorld was released in two thousand five. I'm going to give it to Dakota Fanning because I think her performance grounds this movie in a way that you really, really need. She's so good at projecting genuine fear in a way that's really endearing and feels very human. It feels like the way that a child would react in these situations, She's not overdoing it I think she is so impressive in this movie, especially given the scale of it and who she's working with. So I will absolutely give it to Dakota Fanning. I think she holds it down. Great choice. I want to give mine to the department heads that have been with Spielberg for so long You know, in making this movie in ten months, yes, Spielberg had to make decisions very quickly Its John Williams, Jann Kaminski, Michel Khan, Janna Johnson, Rick Carter, Vick Armstrong, Dennis Merin. who pulled that off. Oh my God, they pulled these guys and gals and everything in between are Aazing Yeah. And kudos, this movie does not look rushed. No at all. And so just incredible work All right, Lizzie, if folks are interested in supporting this podcast and they want to visit our tent, so to speak, how can they do that? Well, you can tell a friend or family member, hey, Do you like scientology? Well, forget about that and come on over here and listen to what went wrong instead. You can leave us a rating or review on whatever podcast or you're listening to this on. You can now subscribe in both Apple and Spotify and there you will get one at least one bonus episode every month. You can also go a step further and join our Patreon where for five dollars a month, you get those bonus episodes. you also get an ad free feed as well as a really lovely fan community. We love engaging with everybody over there. To go clear, if you want to go to the operating Thetan level full stop, you can for fifty dollars get a shout out just like one of these It was late November of two thousand four I was an extra on the set of War of the Worlds When something happened that defied eararthly explanation I haven't talked about it since, but friends This is a true story It was the end of the day We were almost wrapped A beam of light shone down and suddenly Martian tri A chck B We were all running and screaming. Steen Spielbg shouted sound stop filming. An that moment the Martians pooped their pants The Martians could not bve That it couldn' end like this S in a science teology and then went for assist And Thom said I've conquered dyslexia drrug abuse and I've saved Tommywood. Surely I can cure the martians of this No matter what he tried Martians died and dying. And before you get all highigh and mighty, hear me tell Every other major religion tried and failed as well. And now let us remember those who fell before the aliens pooped themselves Adrian Pang Karia, Angeline Renee Cook, Beatrix Earhart Ben Schindelman, Blaze Ambrose, Brian Donahue, Brittney Morris, Brooke, Cameron Smith, C Grace B, Chris Leal, Daniel P., David Friscalanti, Darren and Dale Conkling, Don Scheibel, M. Zodia, Evan Downey, Felicia G. Film it Yourself, Frankenstein, Galen and Miguel, The Broken Glass Kids The cast and crew of Winner Trip to Brownntown, Half Greyhound, James McAvoy, Jason Frankl, JJ Rapido, John D. Wilcher, Jory Hillpiper, Jose Emilano Salo de Giorgio, Karina Kanaba, Kate Ellton, Kathleen Olson, Amy Olgishlager McCoy, Lenna LJ, Lousy Susan, Lydia House, Mark Bertha