Costumer Cherelle Ashby helps actor Floyd Reichman get ready for filming at Hogland House.

 

Beacon photo by Paul Archipley

When Timothy Hines and Susan Goforth began production of their sci-fi movie, “War of the Worlds,” they didn’t know they were about to play David to the Goliath that is Hollywood.

 

Hines, a Port Townsend native and sci-fi fan since childhood, had long dreamed of filming the H.G. Wells story that Orson Welles made famous with his 1938 Halloween night radio broadcast. Some listeners who missed the disclaimer believed Martians were indeed invading Earth.

 

Hines and Goforth, founders of Pendragon Pictures in Seattle, attracted some Microsoft money in the late 1990s, and the project was born. They had visions of “blowing up” the Space Needle in their film, and were working to line up stars like Michael Caine, Eric Stoltz and Charlize Theron.

 

They were clicking on all cylinders. Everything was falling into place.

They even ran a half-page ad in Variety, Hollywood’s bible.

And that was the beginning of their undoing.

 

Seems someone else was working on another version of “War of the Worlds” – some names you might recognize, like Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise. They had some big backers of their own – Paramount, Dreamworks, Viacom.

 

Hines and Goforth, a Bellevue native, were encouraged to shelve their project. “They said we’d be stepping on some powerful toes,” Hines said.

They decided to row against the tide.

 

“We put out our little lemonade stand and went for it,” Goforth said

Then, on Sept. 11, 2001, the terrorist strikes on the East Coast put another nail in their coffin.

Pendragon producer/writer Susan Goforth plays The Wife in flashbacks in the movie “War of the World – the True Story.”

 

Photo courtesy Pendragon Productions

 

“Nobody wanted to do a movie about stuff exploding,” Hines said.

And their fat budget disappeared in a week, with $42 million in promised backing shrinking to $8 million.

 

Eventually, they managed to finish a rough cut – without the big names or big budget – wrapping up filming about three weeks before Spielberg began his movie, which went into theaters in 2005.

 

They found themselves inundated by distributors who wanted to take the movie straight to DVD. The one they chose pushed them to finish post-production in four months, about 14 months less than they needed.

 

The distributor also asked for a copy of the rough cut, ostensibly to show buyers what was coming.

 

But the distributor didn’t wait for the final product; instead they boxed up the rough cut and released it, a 3/12-hour disaster.

 

“To our horror, within a week they had printed a half million copies and shipped them,” Hines said.

 

It took years for Hines and Goforth to live it down.

“Needless to say, the barrage of criticism tests your strength, your spirit, as millions of disgruntled fans speak out,” Hines said.

Timothy Hines, right, director, cinematographer and writer of the upcoming “documentary” “War of the Worlds – the True Story,” directs action on a scene at Hogland House.

 

Beacon photo by Paul Archipley

 

On the bright side, the nightmare put Pendragon on the Hollywood map. And they reached out to many of their harshest critics, explaining the debacle and winning new friends.

 

But they were never happy about the outcome, and wanted to somehow redeem the themselves.

Cut to Mukilteo.

 

Hines hit on an idea to re-film “War of the Worlds” as a documentary for the History Channel.

 

Wells’ original writings were a series of newspaper articles in the 1890s, a first-person account of the Martian invasion. The narrator recounts his tale of death and destruction from England’s rural villages to Victorian London.

 

In the documentary, titled “War of the Worlds – the True Story,” that narrator is seen decades later, circa 1965, retelling the harrowing story from the perspective of time to a team of documentary filmmakers.

 

The production team needed a period house to use as background for the narration, and looked at more than a hundred options.

 

Kay Scheller’s Hogland House B&B proved the perfect set.

“Kay was the most wonderful host ever,” Goforth said. “What a beautiful, romantic B&B, a serene escape, just minutes from Seattle.”

 

Local thespian watchers will recognize the narrator, Seattle veteran actor Floyd Reichman.

 

Goforth discovered him on the Theatre Puget Sound website, thought he looked the part and called him up, suggesting a get-together.

 

“I said, ‘Hell yes,’” Reichman said.

“I met Tim, and my enthusiasm for the project bubbled up. It’s a marvelous project.

“I was never really a sci-fi enthusiast, but I sure am now.”

 

Reichman, 82, has been so pleased with the project that he hopes Pendragon will enlist him for future films.

 

“I would commit myself unconditionally without even knowing the project,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, as shooting wraps up at Hogland House, the production team is planning post-production work that will include incorporating footage from the original film, archival stills from the period of the story, World War I footage, historical maps, photographs and other footage that will give the film the look and feel of a true documentary.

 

Goforth and Hines will make sure that the product audiences see is the one they want them to see.

 

“We were talented amateurs before,” Hines said. “Now we’re PhDs.”