24 Interesting Facts About Mars Attacks!

Name: Mars Attacks!
Released: 1996

Interesting Facts (20)

#001
The Martian Girl's costume had no zippers or buttons so that it could be as smooth as possible. It had to be sewn onto Lisa Marie every day before her scenes could be shot.
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#002
Jack Nicholson accepted his role in the film without reading the script because he had enjoyed working with Tim Burton on Batman (1989) and wanted to work with him again.
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#003
The film's writers were unsure how the Martians should sound, so the script used "Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!" for all of their dialogue lines. This became their actual language in all future Mars Attacks merchandise and media.
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#004
Tim Burton was repeatedly told that he could not kill Jack Nicholson's character in a film. This led him to have Nicholson play two roles in this film and then kill him in both, in defiance of everyone who had told him so.
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#005
The skeletons that appear when people are disintegrated by the Martians' ray guns were red or green. Tim Burton explained that this was done because the film was planned for a Christmas release. Red and green skeletons had also first appeared in Beetlejuice (1988), when Barbara and Adam are in Juno's office, where you can see them along with the other ghouls facing the screen.
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#006
Although the film is set in the 1990s, the US Army's uniforms and equipment date from the 1950s, the era of the films being parodied.
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#007
The design of the Martians' spaceships in the film, including the radio-antenna-like weapon that extends from the ships' undersides, was inspired by Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (1956). In both films it is used to destroy both buildings and people.
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#008
After a performance of his in Las Vegas, Tim Burton visited Tom Jones backstage to ask him to appear in this film. In addition, Jones's then-current real backup singers, Darelle Porter Holden, Christi Black and Sharon Hendrix, played his ill-fated backup singers in the film.
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#009
A real demolition in Las Vegas was filmed by Tim Burton and included in the film. The casino was the Landmark, which was once owned by Howard Hughes. The location is now an expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center's parking lot.
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#010
While filming was underway, Michael J. Fox had been suffering for several years from symptoms of Parkinson's disease that had been increasing slowly but steadily in severity. Evidence of Fox's struggle with the disease is especially visible in the scene of the Martians' first attack, where Fox can be seen experiencing moderate tremors in some shots. The producers managed to integrate this into the film by having his character, Jason Stone, experience fear at the sight of the Martian invaders.
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#011
Jonathan Gems was not even aware that there was a story on the backs of Topps's 1962 "Mars Attacks" trading cards until he wrote the film's script using his own original story.
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#012
The Martian Girl never blinks in any of her scenes in the film.
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#013
Although Danny DeVito is billed above the title on most of the posters, DVD covers and other promotional artwork for the film's theatrical release, he plays an unnamed character with six lines and about 1.5 minutes of screen time.
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#014
The Martians land in Pahrump, Nevada, the home of radio talk-show host Art Bell. Bell was known for featuring guests on his program who were in one way or another involved with the subject of life in space, ranging from scientists exploring the possibility of extraterrestrial life to people who claimed to have been contacted, abducted, examined or impregnated by aliens (sometimes all at once).
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#015
The scene in which the film's characters walk through a collection of old neon signs was shot at the Neon Boneyard, located on land maintained by the Neon Museum, a nonprofit organization in Las Vegas. Many of the signs in the collection (most of the casino signs were built by Young Electric Sign Co., and the pieces were initially salvaged in fragments) were donated by Young Electric Sign Co. and are planned for restoration and inclusion in outdoor exhibits. The Boneyard has been used in many film and TV projects and is open to the public for a paid admission.
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#016
The Martian Girl was designed to look like a hybrid of Marilyn Monroe and the Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
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#017
In the early stages of shooting, the film was to have 60 main characters, but this number was reduced to 23. Among the scrapped characters were a suburban housewife, a soldier, a television preacher, several college students, several colleagues of Professor Donald Kessler, a doctor and his fiancée (a nurse), an actress, a pair of survival experts and a police officer.
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#018
On the Martians' mothership there is a container holding a clown reminiscent of the fat clown in Batman Returns (1992), also directed by Tim Burton and also starring Danny DeVito.
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#019
Tim Burton co-wrote the film's screenplay but wanted not to receive credit for the film. Jonathan Gems, who wrote the film's tie-in novelization, dedicated the film to Burton.
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#020
Asked by Premiere magazine about the film's failure at the box office, Rod Steiger said that Warner Brothers, upon seeing the success of Independence Day (1996), another alien invasion film released in July, decided to move their film from its original 1997 premiere date to December 1996. This put great pressure on Tim Burton to do a faster cut, which led to lower box-office returns because Burton could not make the film as he wanted.
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Production Story (1)

#021
In the first drafts of the film's script and the tie-in novelization, the Martians' ray guns had a much wider variety of graphic fatal effects. Victims of the ray guns were cut in half, had body parts sliced off and had huge holes blown through them. Other victims were melted, disintegrated or set on fire. To avoid an R rating from the MPAA, the producers toned down the effects of the ray guns, and victims were reduced to skeletons only.
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Characters & Cast (1)

#022
Tim Burton called Pam Grier and asked her to fly to Los Angeles for an audition. She said she could not do what he wanted only because her dog was terminally ill. He called her back several times, and she eventually decided that, since her character in the film refused to leave her two sons, she would take the audition without leaving her dog.
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Easter Eggs & References (1)

#023
Initially, Jack Nicholson was to play only President James Dale in the film, and Michael Keaton was to play Art Land. The two had been rivals in Tim Burton's previous film, Batman (1989).
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Life & Family (1)

#024
When Billy Glenn Norris says goodbye to Grandma Florence Norris in the film, he calls her Thomas, Jack Black's real first name.
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Lukas Haas — Mars Attacks! comes up in the facts on that page
Vincent Schiavelli — Mars Attacks! comes up in the facts on that page
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — Mars Attacks! comes up in the facts on that page

Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

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