‘War’ over, Spielberg moves on

In “War of the Worlds,” director Steven Spielberg contemplates an alien attack as a metaphor for today’s terrorism. In his next film, already in production, the director eschews allegory and focuses on real terrorism and its consequences -- specifically the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September and the Israeli response.

Spielberg has been nurturing the project for five years, although it is still going under the unwieldy title of “Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project.”

Long shrouded in secrecy, the production was pushed back once, in part to accommodate the schedule of “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner, who was brought in last summer to rework a script by Oscar-winner Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump” and “The Insider”).

As crowds line up to see “War of the Worlds,” the 58-year-old director is in Europe filming the movie, which stars Eric Bana and Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush and is slated to come out at Christmas.

According to Spielberg’s representative Marvin Levy, the film is “inspired by true events” and based on “multiple sources.”

Spielberg is focusing on one of the signature events in the modern history of terrorism, a bloodbath that played out on TV, bringing the Middle Eastern conflict into American living rooms. The attack also dealt a blow to Israel’s confidence with the message that there was no place in the world where its citizens could be safe.

After the massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir instructed Israeli intelligence agents to hunt down the terrorist perpetrators and kill them, in a counterterrorist campaign that was called “Wrath of God.” Ultimately, 10 terrorists linked to the massacre were killed, although Israel has never formally claimed responsibility.

It remains a very charged topic in Israel. In recent days, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office, which manages the Israeli intelligence service and its archives, reacted to the start of the film with a statement that it had received no request for assistance.

Spielberg’s back-to-back films are a virtual replay of 1993, when he fed the masses with “Jurassic Park” during the summer and then released his serious and ultimately Oscar-winning film “Schindler’s List” at Christmas.

In its opening day of release, “War of the Worlds” looked on track to join the pantheon of blockbusters by Spielberg, the most commercially successful director of all time.

According to distributor Paramount, the film grossed $21.3 million, which is a career best for both Paramount and star Tom Cruise but not, as it turns out, Spielberg, whose opening day best remains “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” which took in $21.6 million on a Friday, May 23, 1997, according to box-office tracking firm Nielsen EDI Inc. (The record for the biggest Wednesday still belongs to “Spider-Man 2,” with $40.4 million on June 30, 2004.)

It is unlikely that even the success of “War of the Worlds” will break the 18-week box-office slump, in which total grosses have been down compared with the same period the year before.

Although Spielberg established his reputation with thrillers such as “Jaws” and the alien movies “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the director has in recent years begun to plumb recent history for more serious fare. He has focused on topics as significant as the Holocaust in “Schindler’s List,” World War II in “Saving Private Ryan” and slavery in “Amistad.”

However, the “Munich Olympics Project” is only his second film to deal with explicitly Jewish subject matter. The director, who is Jewish, donated all his profits from “Schindler’s List” to the Righteous Person Foundation and the Shoah Foundation, which collects videotaped testimony from Holocaust survivors and uses the histories for education and to combat bigotry around the world.

A documentary about the Munich Olympics massacre, “One Day in September,” won the 1999 Oscar.

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By the Numbers / Alien encounters

In the movies, encounters with creatures not of this Earth have provided a rich trove of material, scary and otherwise. For the arrival of Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” Calendar offers a non-comprehensive glimpse at varying styles and commercial success. Sequels are omitted, and figures are not adjusted for inflation.

(Domestic gross in millions)

“ET the Extra-Terrestrial” (‘82): $435.0*

“Independence Day” (‘96): $306.2

“Men in Black” (‘97): $250.7

“Signs” (‘02): $228.0

“Lilo & Stitch” (‘02): $145.8

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (‘77): $141.9*

“Contact” (‘97): $100.8

“Alien” (‘79): $78.9

“Cocoon” (‘85): $76.1

“Galaxy Quest” (‘99): $71.6

“The Abyss” (‘89): $37.8

“Mars Attacks!” (‘96): $54.2

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (‘78): $24.9

“The Thing” (‘82): $13.8

* Includes multiple releases

Sources: Nielsen EDI Inc., Sony Pictures, Times research

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Times staff writer R. Kinsey Lowe contributed to this report.