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THE first time Martians invaded Earth, it was the bugs that stopped them. In HG Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898), the invaders ground to a halt on Primrose Hill after discovering that they had no immunity to the everyday bacteria of Earth. In retrospect, if the army had sneezed rather than shot at them, it would have been over a lot quicker.

But this summer's invaders could prove harder to stop. Not even MRSA is likely to stem the tide of blockbusters - a new Steven Spielbergdirected version of War of the Worlds among them - due to be unleashed this summer on to our cinematic shores. And, for that matter, on to everybody else's cinematic shores.

More big-budget movies than ever are being released on the same day in all major countries, what's known in Hollywood as "day and date". It is an expensive way of doing business: Spielberg's War of the Worlds will open simultaneously in 78 countries, which means 15,000 prints are needed.

The chances of one of those passing through the hands of a pirate DVD duplicator is high. But that, paradoxically, is one of the reasons why Spielberg's company, Dream-Works, and its international distributor, UIP, have chosen to do it this way.

The more widely a film is legitimately available, the argument goes, the less incentive there is for punters to opt for a bootleg copy.

Blockbusters have now got so big, and so important to Hollywood, that they're called "tentpoles", as in the supports from which the smaller films can be hung. It's an apt phrase: having divvied up the summer weekends-between them, the studios can now spread out across the entire season, leaving little home-made Britflicks (and films franAais and peliculas espa"olas) to skulk like mushrooms in their shadow.

It wasn't always thus: 10 years ago, a big Hollywood movie would open in the US - or "domestic", as they say - in the summer, then take two or three months to reach "international"-ie, the rest of the waiting world. Waiting time is over: we're all "domestic" now.

Between Easter and the clocks going back, various TV spin-offs, franchise renewals and sequels, plus a historical epic from the director of Gladiator, will be playing, not just in Peoria, but in Paris, Peterborough, Perth, Pisa and Pusan as well.

And you can forget the piracy argument: the studios are blitzing us this summer because, like the Martians, they want to rule the world.

Nothing new in that. The main reason any movie is green-lit at any studio is because of the consensus that it will make them money, preferably lots of it.

And, since budgets rise faster than ticket prices and the cost of a worldwide opening is huge, they've been fine-tuning the machine over the past few years to produce easily digestible mainstream fare - usually with some advance recognition factor, like a sequel - that can set summer box-office records around the world, then move on to DVD (where the real money's made) when the evenings start to close in.

It was a Spielberg film that started all of this. In the summer of 1975, after a triumphant preview of Jaws in a Long Beach shopping mall, Universal decided to abandon the decades-old tradition of opening in the big cities, then gradually rolling it out into the sticks. Instead, they blitzed moviegoers across America, opening Jaws in 407 theatres in the US and 55 in Canada.

Everyone said they were crazy. But, as is often the case in California, crazy turned out to be the new way of doing things, made for $12 million, Jaws scored more than 10 times that amount in "domestic" (North America) alone, and the era of the blockbuster was born.

Since then, a 407-theatre opening has become chicken feed. In the States, anything less than 3,000 prints for a movie with big stars is a sure sign that the studio has no confidence in it.

But, as this way of doing things moves from being a US phenomenon to a worldwide one, two questions need to be asked. Is this, from Hollywood's point of view, a sensible way of doing business?

And what kind of impact does this carpet-bombing approach to cinema have on the struggling film industries of Europe in general, and Britain in particular?

The answer to the first question is: maybe. Despite the cost, ultrawide releases make movies more than usually critic-proof, and even protect them from bad word-ofmouth. By the time anyone has had a chance to say how bad it is, as last summer's $72-million US opening for The Hulk proved, most of the target audience has already seen it. The approach makes sense twice over for the studios, which get a higher percentage of the ticket price in the opening week.

For non-studio films, the message, meanwhile, is: join us, because you can't beat us. Each year, a local film somewhere in Europe - an Amelie or a Good Bye, Lenin! - proves them wrong.

But one movie does not an industry make. And the "join us" option is the one chosen by at least one of this summer's potential blockbusters. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the work of a British director (Garth Jennings, of cult music video and commercials outfit Hammer Tongs), but with American money, some leading American cast members - Zooey Deschanel is Trillian and Mos Def as Ford Prefect (will Arthur still believe he came from somewhere near Guildford?) And, American marketing, courtesy of Disney.

But the Hollywood adage that you're only as good as your last movie will eventually have to apply to marketing strategies as well, and it will only take two or three hugely expensive international train-wrecks to derail the present approach.

By then, though, the distribution networks will have caught up with the digital age and everything really will have to be different.

COMING TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU WHEREVER YOU ARE XXX: State of the Union A sequel to the 2002 blockbuster. Vin Diesel's out; Samuel L Jackson and Ice Cube are in; and the bad guys are threatening Washington. (Opens worldwide on 29 April)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams wrote the script before he died; Martin Freeman of The Office is inspired casting as Arthur Dent; and Stephen Fry does the voiceover. But will the rest of the world get the very British humour? (US and UK, 29 April)

Kingdom of Heaven Lots of people have tried - Paul Verhoeven was going to do it with Arnie - but Ridley Scott is the first to make a modern epic about the Crusades. Expect the scale of Gladiator but with more moral confusion.

(Worldwide, 6 May) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith It's all about as retro as George Lucas's haircut these days, but the saga still draws the fans. This is the episode in which Annakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader.

(Worldwide, 20 May)

Batman Begins Versions of this franchise renewal have been around since the mid-Nineties. Cult British director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) finally got the gig, and Christian Bale gets to don the cape, (UK, 17 June, five days after rest of the world)

War of the Worlds After a couple of box-office fizzles and almost 30 years to the day after Jaws was unleashed, Spielberg is back to doing what he does best. Tom Cruise stars, but that's not why you'll go to see the film. (UK, 29 June, a week after the rest of the world)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl hated the first version with Gene Wilder, but this one reportedly has his estate's approval. Director Tim Burton is reunited with Johnny Depp and Depp with Freddie Highmore (Peter in Finding Neverland), who plays Charlie. (Most places 15 July, UK 29 July)

(c)2005. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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