What does a Billionaire movie producer give a multi-million movie star for doing such a great job in the new War of the Worlds Movie?

Why an Italian motorcycle, of course!

Tom Cruise, during a November shoot in on Merrick Farm in Howell Township, had had a rough day sloshing through the swamps as part of the film's red weed scenes. The scene was part of the one day shoot divided between a Cranbury Lane home where his fictional wife was supposed to live and the swamps created for the movie.

Cruise apparently filmed the swamp scene first, then went back for shots at the house after which he was scheduled to leave.

Cruise - who had arrived at the set via his usual mode of transportation: helicopter - was apparently very beat, but agreed to stop on Camelot Drive and give autographs to fans when a truck pulled up, open its door and there it was sitting in the back of the truck.

Spielberg wanted it to be a surprise and had overseen this piece of drama as meticulously as he had any thing before the camera.

Cruise was thrilled.

Action scenes from Mission Impossible or not, Cruise loved riding, and didn't even bother grabbing up a helmet. He just jumped the bike and started doing wheelies down the street. He didn't even donned his usual pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses like those he wore in various other movies. Stunned fans recognized him anyway and cheered him on as he put on a show for them, and the delighted Spielberg.

The police chief and other police officers, who accompanied Cruise to and from the helicopter landing pad also looked on, grinning at each other and the action scene they were witnessing first hand.

Cruise and Spielberg had grown close, and both may have been computing back to a yacht docked at the Liberty Harbor Club in Jersey City for some of the scenes - a yacht some believe Spielberg may have sailed north from his massive seaside castle in Florida.