Steven Spielberg’s new “War of the Worlds” film debuts this July, updating the classic H.G. Wells story to take place in modern California. It stars Tom Cruise.

But wait!

There’s ANOTHER “War of the Worlds” movie coming out in JUNE, straight to DVD! Hey, it’s a public domain source…and this one’s sticking to a straight adaptation of the book. Here’s the official site. Now, more from the article:

…to the dismay of the Viacom-owned studio, another War of the Worlds could come out weeks before the Spielbergian version hits theaters. An obscure distributor of DVDs called UAV (formerly United American Video) plans to ship its own adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic about a Martian invasion in Victorian England. UAV’s movie would go to 60,000 retail outlets around the U.S. in mid-June, right when Paramount is ramping up its marketing for Worlds. The low-budget DVD doppelgänger was shot by an obscure Seattle filmmaker named Timothy Hines, whose previous film was Bug Wars, a lesbian-exploitation sci-fi turkey that got shown in one theater in 1997. For his Worlds Hines used no-name actors and did the special effects on desktop computers, setting the film in the novel’s Olde England and sticking closely to the original plot. “It’s Independence Day meets A Room With a View,” he says, honing the perfect Hollywood pitch.

I actually am more looking forward to this version, especially after seeing the trailers. If it’s faithful to the book, instead of focusing entirely on Tom Cruise and his daughter, it could rock. Martian tripods with heat rays seem all the scarier when your greatest weapon is a cannon.

I notice the trailer says that the movie was to be in theaters March 30th. Actually, it may be Pendragon which is getting the short-shrift. Spielberg’s rush job to get the movie completed in under a year probably trampled over Pendragon’s scheduled movie, which was almost certainly in production at the time.

But wait!

There’s yet another “War of the Worlds” movie coming out! This one’s the film adaptation of Jeff Wayne’s 1976 musical. Here’s some test footage of a tripod walking from War of the Worlds online. However, this one won’t be out until 2008, as it’s an all-CGI animated movie.

What a great time to be alive. Now…could someone throw some money towards adapting many of the other great adventure classics besides just War of the Worlds?