The producer of one of this year’s least popular movies with record-low ratings believes that he and his team still did great work. And he stands by that publicly.
Which movie is being discussed? It is the adaptation of the novel “War of the Worlds,” which premiered on Amazon Prime on July 30, 2025. The main roles in the sci-fi film are played by Eva Longoria and the American rapper and actor Ice Cube.
The film has, as of today (August 30, 2025), received an abysmal rating from critics of only 2% (from 44 reviews), while it stands at least at 21% from audiences (from nearly 2,500 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes and is also being torn apart in the comments. “Sloppy filmmaking,” “terrible garbage,” and “disaster” are terms used in the comments on Rotten Tomatoes by critics and audiences to describe the work of producer Patrick Aiello.
However, he has a very different opinion about the film: “For the money, we made a really good movie.” (Patrick Aiello in conversation with Toni’s Film Club, via GamesRadar+)
Here you can see the trailer for the “War of the Worlds” adaptation by Steven Spielberg from 2005, which fared significantly better than the new adaptation from 2025:
“No one wants to make a bad movie”
What does the producer say about the criticism? Aiello states in the conversation with Toni’s Film Club that the studio behind War of the Worlds really wanted to make a good movie:
No one wants to make a bad movie. Period. Never. No one forces themselves out of bed in the morning to work 12, 14, 16 hours a day, sometimes, as was the case for us, 6, 7 days a week, just to produce something bad.
That the film failed with both audiences and critics is unfortunate for the producer – and he believes that the creators of War of the Worlds are not to blame for the hate. “We just wanted to entertain. It’s unfortunate that the film is so hated. We have no control over that.”
What else matters to the producer? The producer adds that there is only one way to really assess the success of the film. And that doesn’t depend on reviews but on the numbers.
You can only look at the results to figure out if the efforts were worth it. And if we make it to number 4, number 5, or number 6 of the most-watched movies on Amazon’s platform, then we have really succeeded.
Aiello draws the following conclusion from his conversation with Toni’s Film Club, which sounds like a kind of peace of mind for him: “We really wanted to make a good movie. I think that with the money we had, we made a really good movie. We will be fine.” (Patrick Aiello via GamesRadar+)
If you enjoy watching bad movies, the new War of the Worlds could be a new project for a funny movie night. Of course, you can also form your own opinion. If you prefer to watch a film that performed significantly better with audiences, you might be interested in this sci-fi film that you may not have heard of: Few people know about a sci-fi film with Pedro Pascal that received an 89% positive rating – it was never shown in cinemas in Germany
