Ice Cube Films Pandemic-Era ‘War of the Worlds’ Scenes Without Director, Co-Stars

Ice Cube recently addressed the controversy surrounding the 2025 Prime Video release of War of the Worlds, revealing the film was shot in just 15 days during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic without a director or fellow actors on set, necessitating a unique production approach where much of the action took place on computer screens. He explained that the film’s delayed release was due to Universal selling the movie to Amazon, with the final cut incorporating real surveillance footage from around the world to create many scenes. Despite earning a 4% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and being widely panned for its low production quality and perceived promotional content for Amazon, War of the Worlds topped streaming charts upon release. The movie stars Ice Cube as government computer analyst Will Radford and co-stars Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, and others, with a plot focusing on an alien invasion and themes of surveillance and technology. Critics and audiences criticized the film for feeling like an extended commercial featuring Amazon branding, while Ice Cube defended the project as a pandemic-era necessity with unavoidable constraints. Overall, the film is viewed as a flawed but innovative attempt to adapt H.G. Wells’ classic novel under unprecedented production conditions.