Clone Wars

New York Post Online Edition:: "
By LOU LUMENICK

June 25, 2005 -- TWO brand-new, very low-budget alternate versions of 'War of the Worlds' are arriving on DVD, just in time to cash in on the publicity storm surrounding Steven Spielberg's megabucks version with Tom Cruise.

Video distributors often dig up older versions of films to ride the coattails of high-profile theatrical releases, but industry experts can't remember a case of three new editions of the same classic story battling it out in the marketplace in the space of eight days.

'H.G. Wells' the War of the Worlds' - a starless edition that returns to Wells' original setting of Victorian England and is being sold at stores like Wal-Mart for as little as $8.42 - established a beachhead last Tuesday.

On Tuesday - a day before Spielberg's version hits theaters - the practically identically titled 'H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds' (which, like the Spielberg version, omits the first 'the'' in Wells' title), a contemporary rendition of the alien-invasion classic set in the southeast and starring second-string Brat Packer C. Thomas Howell, lands at Blockbuster and other stores for as little as $17.47.

Just to add to the otherworldly confusion for video customers, there are also two newly released documentaries titled 'War of the Worlds' and 'H.G. Wells and the War of Worlds,' not to mention the DVD of the first Hollywood version of 'The War of the Worlds,' made in 1953 with Gene Barry."

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