How did it end up that Pendragon and Dreamworks are adapting the same book at the same time?

"When I originally set up my production on 'The War of the Worlds', we approached everyone in Hollywood for the distribution side. Eventually we were funneled into Dreamworks/Paramount. We met with the heads of Paramount and friends of friends of Tom Cruise, various producers and associates. And little by little we learned that he [Cruise] had designs to do 'The War of the Worlds.' And we really weren't quite given clear indication as to why it was stalled out for him, what was his problem that he hadn't previously made it. But we weren't given such clear indications that it was definitely a go project for him. And indeed from the time where we first heard that to the point where they eventually fast tracked it, he did 10 or 15 projects in between."

Photo courtesy Pendragon Pictures Hines was determined to find a way to bring his vision to the big screen.

What's the legal copyright status of the right to make movies from the book?
"It's one of the most complicated copyright issue problems out there. I can only say it like this. Parts of it are in the public domain, parts of it have really strange rights optioned in very strange ways to people for various different concerns. It's available in some territories and not available in other territories for some people and that possibly is why Tom Cruise was so stalled out. It was just a daunting experience. When we set out to make it we spent easily right at the very beginning $12,000 in just copyright research alone. Just to find out what all of the different various aspects of the copyright concerns were. So what I can say to you is that it boiled down to essentially a head to head between us and Paramount and ultimately they wrote us a letter conceding that we had a right to do a version of 'The War of the Worlds.'"