•What’s popping? A close encounter of the deadly kind. Tom Cruise re-teams with Minority Report director Steven Spielberg in a retelling of author H.G. Wells’ paranoia-propelled sci-fi fantasy from 1898. Space invaders (who are NOT Martians) are out to annihilate the Earth in general and — borrowing the setting from Orson Welles’ 1938 radio play that panicked the nation — New Jersey in particular.

But what is a Spielberg thriller without a dose of domestic drama in the midst of mass terror and destruction? Cruise is a divorced blue-collar dad who’s forced to face up to his responsibilities when he has to save his family, including moppet-of-the-moment Dakota Fanning as his daughter.

•A few more kernels. Remember when Spielberg was the go-to guy for cuddly aliens such as E.T.? Zap that thought. “I have not seen Steven have this much fun in a long time,” says producer Kathleen Kennedy of his return to sci-fi action. “He’s uniquely suited to this genre in a way no one else is.”

Remember how Spielberg dropped nerve-rattling hints that a dino rampage was afoot in his Jurassic Park movies? Expect the same. “There are tons of those moments,” Kennedy says. In fact, there’s one in the first 15 minutes that “will knock your socks off.”

•Bonus treat. The leggy alien war machines that shoot out lethal beams of light. “Let’s just say that they are five times the size of a T. rex,” Kennedy says.