"Locally filmed scenes for the upcoming Steven Spielberg movie /dreamworksfansite.com/waroftheworlds/"">War of the Worlds will need a more ethnically diverse group of extras than those who turned out for a casting call on Nov. 13, the casting director says.

We want to make it so they don't just kill white people, they kill everybody, Billy Dowd said during a visit to Athens this week to sort through some 2,000 applications and photographs.

The scene being shot in the Greene County village will depict thousands of people being killed while running to catch a ferry during a Martian invasion. The local filming is scheduled for Dec. 6-9.

We need more Asian, black and Hispanic extras, he said. I've called up to Albany to the different organizations - the Chinese community center, and the Japanese cultural association and the international center. We want to make it look like a nice diverse group.

Dowd also is accepting mailed-in submissions from people who want to be extras in the movie. Photographs and phone numbers should be sent to ""War of the Worlds"" casting, 110 Leroy St., New York, N.Y. 10014.

It would be good if they could get the pictures in to us as quickly as possible, but we certainly can take a lot more people, Dowd said.

Spielberg's film, produced by Paramount Pictures, will be a contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells' 1898 novel about a Martian invasion of Earth. It will star Tom Cruise and is to be released next year.

Dowd said selected people who turned out for the Nov. 13 casting call at the Athens Community Center will be notified by phone in the near future.

We'll be calling people right after the Thanksgiving holiday, he said. ""Right now, I'm making the piles of who's going to be cops, who's going to be doctors, who's going to be nurses, who is going to bring their dog, who is going to be refugees.""

Extras being used in the Athens shoot will be paid $80 per 12-hour workday. Each day's shoot begins at 3 p.m. and will be outdoors.

/dreamworksfansite.com/waroftheworlds/"">War of the Worlds first was brought to the big screen by director Byron Haskin in 1953. Fifteen years earlier, on Oct. 30, 1938, a Mercury Theater radio broadcast of the story by actor Orson Welles convinced countless people across the United States that Martians actually were attacking.

Spielberg's film is one of two /dreamworksfansite.com/waroftheworlds/"">War of the Worlds remakes scheduled for release next year. The other is being made by British production company Pendragon Pictures.

Source: /www.zwire.com"">ZWire."