War of the Worlds (2026)

War of the Worlds (2026) constructs a visual collage around the complete audio of Orson Welles' legendary 1938 Mercury Theatre radio broadcast, which presented H.G. Wells' alien invasion as a series of realistic news bulletins and reportedly caused widespread panic. Director Péter Lichter pairs the original narration with a shifting tapestry of AI-generated imagery, drone cinematography, video game footage, and internet-sourced fragments.

The film traces the broadcast's structure — from quiet musical interludes interrupted by "breaking news" to the escalating Martian assault on New Jersey — while its visuals drift between pastiche of 1930s newsreel aesthetics, contemporary surveillance perspectives, and synthetic hallucinations. No new narrative is added; the work functions as a media-archaeological reflection on how fictional narratives colonize real information channels across eras.