War of the Worlds mock documentary predicted to strike in October 2010

SpaceDaily.com reports that a new live-action faux documentary film based on H.G. Wells' seminal 1898 science fiction novel, The War of the Worlds, is in post production and is scheduled to be released on DVD in October 2010. Titled War of the Worlds: The True Story, the film is a Pendragon Pictures production directed by Timothy Hines and stars 82-year-old stage and television actor Floyd Reichman as an aging journalist. Here’s the premise:

In 1965 a film crew captured the memories of the last living survivor of the war between Earth and Mars that took place at the turn of the 20th Century. The footage was discovered in a basement vault of a condemned house in 2006. Also found in the vault was previously unknown footage of the actual Martian invaders and their war machines. This is the motion picture presentation of that eyewitness account.

It’s worth noting that Hines and Pendragon Pictures made a previous movie version of War of the Worlds in 2005. It sold 650,000 copies on DVD and grossed $7 million dollars, but Hines confesses that it was deeply-flawed and he looks forward to the remake.

Meanwhile, check out War of the Worlds Invasion, a comprehensive website maintained by John Gosling, a British writer and author of Waging The War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic, Including the Original Script (McFarland, 2009).