May 03, 2017
The BBC have announced the first British television adaptation of H. G. Wells’ classic novel The War Of The Worlds from writer Peter Harness.
Harness is known to Doctor Who fans as the man behind 2014’s Kill The Moon, 2015’s The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion and the forthcoming Series 10 episode, The Pyramid at the End of the World. This new version will air as a three-part drama on BBC One.
The War Of The Worlds was first published, after a serialisation, in 1898 and has been adapted many times, including: for radio in 1938 by Orson Wells; the 1953 Hollywood blockbuster; Jeff Wayne’s musical version in 1978; and, more recently, the 2005 Steven Spielberg film starring Tom Cruise and Justin Chatwin (Grant in The Return of Doctor Mysterio).
Older fans will also remember The Master reading the novel in the 1973 six-part epic, Frontier In Space. Its author, H. G. Wells, also featured in 1985 Sixth Doctor story, Timelash.
On the new adaptation, writer Peter Harness says:
“I'm feeling phenomenally lucky to be writing The War Of The Worlds, and blowing up gigantic swathes of the Home Counties at the dawn of the twentieth century. Wells’s book is ground zero for all modern science fiction, and like all the best sci-fi, manages to sneak in some pretty astonishing comments on what it is to be a human being too.
I’m hoping to follow in the great man’s footsteps by making a terrifying, Martian-packed series which manages to be emotional, characterful, and - deep breath, dare I say it - even political at the same time.”
Filming on The War Of The Worlds begins early 2018.
