War of the Worlds (2005 film) has grossed $704,745,540 including DVD sales, making it the fourth highest grossing film of 2005, and the 66th highest grossing film worldwide. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Metacritic gave the film an average score of 73 based on 40 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives "War of the Worlds" a 75% "certified fresh" rating based on 255 reviews and the critical consensus: "Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds delivers on the thrill and paranoia of H.G. Wells' classic novel while impressively updating the action and effects for modern audiences." James Berardinelli praised the acting
The War of the Worlds 1900 echo scientific ideas of the time, including Pierre-Simon Laplace's nebular hypothesis, Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, and Gustav Kirchhoff's theory of spectroscopy. These scientific ideas combined to present the possibility that planets are alike in composition and conditions for the development of species, which would likely lead to the emergence of life at a suitable geological age in a planet's development. By the time Wells wrote "The War of the Worlds" there had been three centuries of observation of Mars through telescopes. Galileo in 1610 observed the planet's phases, and in 1666 Giovanni Cassini identified the polar ice