Invasion Is Coming

Here's an interesting factoid for you: When the cameras first started rolling on The Invasion back in September 2005, Daniel Craig hadn't even been cast as James Bond. So to find himself doing press for The Invasion now is ''strange,'' he admits. Still, ''it happens. I've been doing this long enough to take experiences like this in stride. Some films get pushed aside.''

And when they do, it's usually because the production was somehow troubled — a rumor, however unfortunate, now being circulated about The Invasion. Conceived as an updated version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the sci-fi political thriller, in which Craig and Nicole Kidman play doctors who fend off an extraterrestrial attack, sat in the can for 13 months before the cast reassembled in January for reshoots. The goal was to amp up the action and add a twist to the ending — only Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) was no longer calling the shots. He'd been replaced by V for Vendetta director James McTeigue and the Wachowski brothers, which sent tongues wagging that producer Joel Silver had removed the German director for failing to deliver a sufficiently Hollywood movie. True? ''No!'' bellows Silver. ''Of course not. Oliver's wife was in the hospital.'' (It was actually Hirschbiegel's wife's sister, according to his agent.) ''I mean, what can I say?'' Silver asks, sounding annoyed. ''There are reshoots on almost every movie that I've been involved in. The Wachowskis always help us, and James McTeigue shot a couple of days. That's what happened.'' We'll have to take his word for it. Hirschbiegel declined to be interviewed. (Come to think of it, so did Kidman, who suffered minor injuries while filming a car chase for the movie last winter.)

And Craig? He's keeping as cool as 007. ''The only reason to go back and reshoot is to get the film right,'' he says. Let's hope it was worth the effort. (August 17)