War of the Worlds rejoined

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise appear to have stepped up their efforts to return HG Wells' classic science fiction tale to the big screen.

HG Wells' novel has had a long and colourful past. Penned in 1898 and set in England, it tells the tales of Martians who invade the planet, crush all human opposition and then are killed-off by the common cold.

On Halloween, 1938, Orson Welles broadcast the tale in America as if it were a newscast, leading to large numbers of the population arming themselves against perceived alien invaders and in the words of the New York Times a day later, sparking "a wave of mass hysteria."

The story was brought to the big screen in 1953 and became a television series in the late 1980s.

The new film version has been pushed to prominence after Spielberg's 1972 Munich Olympics flick "Vengeance" and Cruise's "Mission: Impossible 3" were delayed.

"War Of The Worlds" is set to be released in 2006.

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