The Invasion is a remake of the 1950's classic movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers which was set to be released last year starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman for German director Oliver Hirschbiegel. The scoop was Warner Brothers were unhappy with the cut that Hirschbiegel turned in, and asked for him to do re-shoots, but the director was unable to do them because of scheduling difficulties. So the studio turned to the Wachowski Brothers to do the re-shoots but they couldn't do them either because they were prepping for Speed Racer. They did however kindly suggest James McTeigue to do the re-shoots.... he of V for Vendetta fame who was groomed to direct the Alan Moore graphic novel after working with the Wachowski's on The Matrix trilogy. So filming commenced again late last year which we all know because Nicole Kidman crashed her car on set! Collider through Dark Horizons are hinting that maybe there was more re-shoots done than previous thought.....
"They rewrote over two-thirds of the film... Joel Silver and Warner Bros. knew that they were capable of creating a more commercially accessible and large scale film than had previously been put together. Apparently, the earlier cut may have been a little artsy, talky, and not exactly a summer tentpole."
The question I would have for Warner Brothers is this..... why did you hire the director of Downfall if you wanted an explosive and probably mindless summer blockbuster? It should have been quite evident to the studio that the German director would helm a more serious "art" film than the sort of picture Michael Bay would release. I fear in this case that a potentially great and worthy film.... may have been sacrificed for a summer blockbuster from a money hungry studio. Let's hope they didn't destroy Hirschbiegel's cut of the film so we it can be released on DVD sometime.... and let's certainly hope that the German director doesn't avoid Hollywood altogether now. source - dark horizons, collider