War of the Worlds has proved to be a massive flop for Amazon thanks to its 2% Rotten Tomatoes score (which places it among some of the worst movies of all time), in part because of criticisms of its over-the-top product placement for the corporation – including the fact that the thing that saves the day is… an Amazon Air delivery.
However, one of the film's producers has claimed that none of it was intended as product placement, and the movie wasn't meant to be released by Amazon. Hmmm.
"Amazon didn't see it until the movie was all the way done. We never intended for Amazon to release the movie," producer Patrick Aiello told Toni's Film Club. "We always thought Universal was going to release the movie theatrically."
This new adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic novel stars Ice Cube as Will Radford, a surveillance and threat assessment expert at the Department of Homeland Security, who's on the hunt for a hacker known as the Disruptor when a shower of meteors containing large, violent machines hits Earth.
So, why all the references to Amazon? Well, Aiello has a lengthy explanation. "The creation of Mark [Radford's son-in-law, played by Devon Bostick] as an Amazon driver was simply because during COVID, in the early months of COVID, when you weren't going to the grocery store and you couldn't get toilet paper or paper towels, you couldn't get these basic things, or you couldn't buy more than one of them, who was bringing us, individually, to our homes, all these products to keep us going, to keep us neutral, to keep us surviving? Amazon drivers, FedEx drivers, UPS drivers," he said. "These people, these individuals, are heroes. They are unsung heroes."
Aiello had justification for the proliferation of Amazon and Prime logos throughout the movie, too. "We wanted to really have Mark and his vans stand out," he continued. "We wanted it to be recognizable, universally understood that this is a part of society that serves a very important part. And then the drone, we had to figure out how do you get Cube a USB stick with a virus ready to be uploaded at his location when he's two miles away from where Mark is?"
The movie's "screenlife" form, which means the action takes place entirely on computer or phone screens, also provided complications, editor Charles Ancelle added. "It was very confusing for a while in the edit when you didn't have the Prime Air overlay on the Amazon drone," he said, referring to a scene where there are two drones in play. "We needed to add that for clarity."
War of the Worlds is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video. For more, fill out your watchlist with our picks of the best upcoming movies on the way in 2025.
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