Steven Spielberg To Remake When Worlds Collide
Is Steven Spielberg on some sort of crusade to remake all 1950’s films with world in the title? He might be as it seems that not content with remaking War of the Worlds, Spielberg will now turn his attention to a remake of When World’s Collide. Spielberg will produce the movie, but it’s not known yet if he will direct it too.
The original When World’s Collide was released in 1951 and is often ranked alongside War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still as one of the finest sci-fi films of its era. When astronomers discover that Earth is on a collision course with another planet they build a craftto carry humans off the planet in order to preserve humanity and other species.
While I think I’ve seen every old sci-fi film there is too see, I honestly can’t remember any details about this one. It does come highly recommended, but the concept is quite dated and very um dare I say 50’s? I’m assuming that Spielberg wouldn’t do a straight remake, but would rather do a re-imagining much as he did with War of the Worlds.
Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his personal website eoghann.com..
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Douglas Mappin
I have loved the novel “When Worlds Collide” and its sequel “After Worlds Collide” ever since I was a kid! I liked
the 1950s movie, but with extreme reservations as it took way too many liberties with the book.
I am excited by the prospect of a new film, one that I hope follows the book more closely. That said, Spielberg
has plenty of opportunities to update the concept (since the two books were written in 1932 and 1933 respectively)…
and the science in a great number of ways was so bad, but then, what did they know about space travel in 1932?
I REALLY hope the new movie sticks to the two planetary bodies entering our solar system like the book, otherwise
Spielberg will be just remaking the movie “Deep Impact,” which incidentally he was one of the producers.
I cannot wait to see this new film!!!
Sep 8th, 2005
Mike Eagle
I, too, am a great fan of George pal’s 1951 original sci-fi classic. There’s a great
opportunity for Sommers/Spielberg to do justice to the classic story. Obviously the
re do will be a SFX extravaganza, but I hope the producer/director will build on
the extraordinary human drama that is at the core of Balmer/Wylie’s story. I worry
though; John balderston must still be spinning in his grave after Sommers rehashed
‘The Mummy’ & turned it into ‘Indiana Jones Meets The WWE’. ‘When Worlds Collide’
is the pentultimate apocalypse. Let the SFX serve the story, not the other way
around.
May 26th, 2006
John Marmaro
I have long loved the George Pal movie and the Wylie & Balmer novels even more, which were remarkable for having been written in 1931! And if anything, the sequel to WWC — AFTER WORLDS COLLIDE — is even more fascinating than its predecessor. I can only hope that Spielberg has the good sense, as well as enough respect for the many fans of the books, to cleave as closely to the books as is possible. And I hope he does NOT try to “update” them, but leaves them set in an alternate 1930s world. After all, today, there would be no big whoop about constructing spacecraft to ferry survivors to Bronson Beta (and I hope he calls the planet that and not the rather pretentious “Zyra” of the Pal movie). There would be some tricky elements to making a faithful adaptation… as remarkably on-target as some of the scientific speculation was for 1931, such as the idea of atomic furnaces (remember, the nucleus of the atom had only been recently discovered at that time), some of the scientific elements have proven not quite right (the idea of needing a metal so refractory that the furnaces wouldn’t melt it, for example). However, even sticking to the book in these instances would be infinitely better than replacing its concepts with some of the ludicrous pseudo- and ersatz- “science” that some recent disaster movies have sported, like the outrageously ridiculous “ABSOLUTE ZERO”, for one, where obviously the writers used scientific-sounding terms without the slightest understanding of what they really meant. And the Pal movie, too, made some rather quaint and (to us) ridiculous changes… such as having the spaceship run on, ostensibly, fossil fuels (the ship’s control panel having been provided with a fuel-guage that wouldn’t be out of place in a Studebaker), or that the passage of “Zyra” (Bronson Beta) would only be felt once, and that at an exact 1pm (the book much more credibly shows increasing effects at each high tide as the planet approaches the Earth). And I see no reason to make any substantive changes in the story line either, be it in characters and their relationships to each other or in what happens. (The Pal movie, for example, changing Eve Hendron’s name to Joyce, and Randsdell’s to Randall, or making Tony Drake a doctor, etc etc etc). The one change made in the movie that was for the best was the transformation of the book’s rather pedestrian character of millionaire Matthew Borgan into the character of wheelchair-bound Sidney Stanton. That was perhaps the best change in the entire movie and is perhaps the one element from that film that should be worked into the new adaptation. There are little hints in the books that might be fun to bring into the movie, too, such as, when Randsdell and his two colleagues, exploring after the devastation of the first passage of Bronson Beta, visit the President, who is clearly meant to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and the repeated mentions of the “German actress” who joined the camp and escaped with the refugees to Bronson Beta– very likely meant to be Marlene Dietrich! Those would be quite fun to include, wouldn’t you say?
Anyhow, now that we have CGI and it will be possible to show the events in the book in a believable manner, I agree, I hope the SFX will not be allowed to take such a precedence that the story and its scientific and social elements are treated loosely or lightly. I have, for years, said (and did say in my Amazon review of the books) that I wished a Spielberg would remake the movies, this time in an adaptation faithful to the books. And now, he’s going to do it… I only hope he doesn’t disappoint me and the millions of fans of the novels. There have been so many wretched adaptations of great SciFi and horror books– the awful remake of THE HAUNTING; Francis Ford Coppola’s version of DRACULA which in its very title claimed to be faithful to Bram Stoker but which was egregiously not; the terrible movie of THE KEEP, which I hope will be remade properly some day; even the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, which got progressively looser and looser till the third was an outrage to those who really know and love the books: however good a movie qua movie it might have been it was a failure as a realization of Tolkien’s masterpiece. PLEASE, Mr Spielberg, don’d disappoint us!!!!
Oct 18th, 2007
nick fore
I’m a big fan of when worlds collide and its sequel and I loved the 1950’s movie of it. I just hope that whoever writes the remake will stay more true to the book. The 1951 movie depicts a star hitting earth when its suposed to be a gas planet like jupiter. And the names zyra and bellus were did they come up with those. Its bronson alpha and bronson beta. I also hope the new movie does better than an oil painting for the surface of bronson beta or zyra whichever name you prefer. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie but come on they could have stayed more true to the book. When theyfinallyremake it I hope they stay as true to the book as possible.I think that with all the specal effects that they have nowadays they could make a great movie.
Apr 20th, 2008
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