‘War of the Worlds’ updated

New York — “No one would have believed … that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own.”

“The War of the Worlds,” the classic H.G. Wells sci-fi novel that begins with those foreboding words of alien observation, will be updated by director Steven Spielberg, with Tom Cruise to star, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks announced Monday.

Shooting is set to begin in November.

Wells’ 1898 novel has been adapted in a 1953 film, a TV series and as an infamous 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles that convinced thousands of listeners that aliens had indeed invaded.

They’re going to ‘Hell’

Denver — “Hell House,” the controversial morality play first staged at a suburban church for Halloween, is set to be spoofed in a new stage production starting Aug. 28 in Los Angeles.

With Bill Maher playing Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus, the production will use the original play’s script and special effects “to lampoon (Christian) fundamentalist beliefs about hell,” producer Maggie Rowe said Monday.

“It will be a parody of itself. It will be very funny. We’re having a hoot,” said Rowe, who represents the Center for Inquiry-West, which says it promotes and defends reason and science.

The original “Hell House,” created by the Rev. Keenan Roberts in 1995 at an Arvada church, depicts scenes in which teens fall into hell by choosing abortion, drugs or homosexual activity.

Shhh! Marriage is a secret

Los Angeles — Diane Lane and Josh Brolin are married, but their publicist is under orders not to say when, where or how.

Spokeswoman Kelly Bush confirmed the wedding but said her clients banned her from saying anything else besides “they’re hitched,” reports The Associated Press.

Lane, 39, the star of “Unfaithful” and “Under the Tuscan Sun,” had been engaged to Brolin, 36, since August 2002.

Brolin is the son of actor James Brolin and stepson of Barbra Streisand.

‘Survivor’ launch announced

New York — Reality TV is getting old.

“Survivor” will head into its ninth season at 7 p.m. Sept. 16 with a two-hour premiere, CBS announced Tuesday. The new edition, “Survivor: Vanuatu — Islands of Fire,” takes place in a nation of over 80 volcano-dotted islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

Eighteen castaways will compete in separate tribes of men versus women. The participants include an FBI agent, a drill sergeant named Sarge, a Pennsylvania sheep farmer and a mechanical bull operator from Los Angeles. The oldest competitor is Scout Cloud Lee, a 59-year-old rancher from Oklahoma.

Vanuatu is home to more than 100 languages, and a tribal and ritualistic culture is still in existence on many of its islands.