Just found this info on a new War of the Worlds movie...
"Independent film company Pendragon Pictures was planning to start production of The War of the Worlds in Seattle, WA on October 15, 2001 on a budget of $42 million, but the terrible events of 9/11 caused the firm to shelve the project for the foreseeable future, since the picture was slated to include the destruction of Seattle by 10-story death machines. According to director Timothy Hines, "The whole world was touched by the WTC experience. For us personally those planes slammed directly into our lives. We lost a very close friend and have been in mourning. We also watched portions of our fictional screenplay being played out on September 11th. I knew immediately we couldn't do War of the Worlds as conceived." If the film does go forward, the setting will probably be changed back to Victorian England rather than being set in modern day Seattle. Originally slated for an October 31, 2002 release date, the film has now been pushed back to at least 2005.
Complicating matters, Tom Cruise, in conjunction with Paramount Pictures, announced he would begin production on a separate War of the Worlds film sometime in 2003. Michael Fleming of Variety reported that Steven Spielberg is rumored to be candidate for directing the film."
So seems that Tom Cruise is going to be doing the new Paramount film and not the film by Pendragon, will be interesting to see what happens.