That'll buy a lot of pie tins and fishing line!

Spielberg, right ahead!


Okay, I'm officially very excited about War of the Worlds now, more than even my typical level of excitement at the announcement of a new Spielberg Joint. It sounds like he's really swinging for the fences with this one:

Steven Spielberg's upcoming movie War Of The Worlds is poised to make history in Hollywood as the most expensive film ever made - surpassing Titanic's $198 million budget. The Oscar-winning director and actor Tom Cruise, who first teamed up in Minority Report, will pocket a fifth of the box office profit from the film based on HG Wells' classic story about Martian invaders. A source says, "No expense will be spared. Spielberg wants to make it the film of the decade."

Now, Spielberg isn't one to break the bank. Both Jurassic Park and The Lost World were relatively inexpensive, considering the groundbreaking effects and assured hit status. In fact, only one of his films - coincidentally Minority Report - has (just barely) topped the now-standard $100 Million budgetary mark (though these are all based on studio-reported figures, which I've been dubious of ever since hearing that Batman & Robin cost nearly twice as much as its reported budget... and anyone who's peeked at a blockbuster's real budget sheet and compared it to reported numbers can attest that this fudging is commonplace). Of course, Spielberg and his big stars (namely, the Toms) tend to defer their big paydays for backend, keeping the costs down. However, there's no denying that Spielberg literally gets more bang for his buck than just about any other director in Hollywood. So imagine how many bangs he'll deliver with at least twice as many bucks as he's ever had to play with before?

One caveat about this whole story - I haven't been able to find a single source to confirm this Titanic-topping mega-budget outside of IMDb News or British tabloids, neither of which abide by anything resembling journalistic integrity or authenticity 100% of the time, so I take it all with an iceberg size grain of salt. But if this turns out to be true, then Earth: Prepare for Spielberg to blow the !@#$ out of you!