Two months late, War of the Worlds opens Thursday

If you're like Shanghaiist and waited to see War of the Worlds on the big screen, please don't sit next to us at the Xintiandi theater next Tuesday -- unless you promise to stay quiet and turn your mobile phone off. The latest Cruise/Spielberg collaboration opens Thursday at a theater near you. War of the Worlds has gotten generally favorable reviews and has somehow managed to rake in more than $230 million in the US and around $600 million globally despite being readily available on the streets of Shanghai in pirated form. You can view the trailer over at Apple's site. And if all this ain't enough WOW for you, you can check out the musical stage version (we're not making this up) -- it's coming to China in 2007. Sounds crazy, right? But not as crazy as Tom Cruise -- he's planning an extravagant "Arabian Knights"-style wedding with "millions of flowers" in Mexico later this year. And then there's that whole cult thing.

Also in Shanghaiist:
Pop your Scientology tents, Tom’s coming to town
Blockbusters are coming, but is China ready to pay?