World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles: better than Skyline?

22 November 2010

John Howell

After sitting through Skyline, it's hard to imagine that I'll ever want to pay money to watch an alien invasion story again, but they seem to be unavoidable lately. There's the upcoming Monsters, J. J. Abrams' Super Eight, Cowboy's and Aliens with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, and Sony's very big budget, World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles.

I really don't like the title, but the first haunting trailer for World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles suggests that this alien invasion story will be a very different movie to Skyline (and let's face it, this can only be a good thing). The trailer is light on special effects but oozes style and gravity. Apparently inspired by a real life (?) UFO incident in Los Angeles (a rumoured air-barrage battle supposed to have taken place in 1942 three months after Pearl Harbor), World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles stars Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez and tells the story of a Marine platoon fighting off an alien invasion in Los Angeles. That's all the details I could find regarding the plot, but add a comment or email us if you know more.

Interestingly, the two brothers who made Skyline also worked on the special effects for World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles and are apparently being sued by Sony who believe they used Sony's special effects resources when making their own film, according to Deadline. The brothers think otherwise and believe Sony was trying to push back Skyline's release date. Since Skyline has already been released, it appears Sony lost that battle.

"Any claims of impropriety are completely baseless," the brothers wrote. "This is a blatant attempt by Sony to force these independent filmmakers to move a release date that has long been set by Universal and Relativity and is outside the filmmakers' control."

Watch the World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles trailer below. I've also added the trailer to the other upcoming alien themed movies: Monsters, Super Eight, and Cowboy's and Aliens.

The release date for World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles is March 11, 2011.

PS - The music from the trailer comes from the experimental Icelandic musician, Jóhann Jóhannsson. The track is called The Sun's Gone Dim And The Sky's Turned Black. I ended up buying this track and a few of his other works on iTunes.