Initially, Mars Attacks! should have been Dinosaurs Attack!

Broadcast on France 5, Tim Burton’s film was born from an improbable mix of inspirations, ranging from a card game to The Infernal Tower.

Mars Attacks! science fiction comedy Tim Burton released in 1996 is broadcast this evening on France 5 at 9:05 p.m. A good opportunity to tell you the strange origins of this UFO (no pun intended) in the filmmaker’s filmography. Mars Attacks! it is, as its title indicates, the story of an invasion of Martians on planet Earth. Pretending that they come in peace, the humans prepare to welcome them but the malicious aliens quickly change their tune and begin to exterminate all humans in order to invade the Earth.

At the origins of the project, it all started with a gift that the screenwriter of the film Jonathan Gems wants to offer Tim Burton (via Reverse) for his birthday. He says that he came across collectible card games with a pop design by chance. He decides to take two to offer to the director, one being titled Dinosaur Attack! and the other Mars Attacks!. Tim is won over and immediately wants to make a film on the theme of Dinosaur Attack!that is to say a disaster film featuring an invasion of dinos in American metropolises.

Unfortunately, Burton learns that Spielberg already working on a sequel to Jurassic Park in which prehistoric monsters attack Los Angeles. The director ofEdward Scissorhands therefore falls back on the second set of cards: Mars Attacks!. But once again he discovers that Roland Emmerich is preparing a soberly titled alien invasion film Independence Day.

Never mind ! Burton is not about to give up on his project and to distance himself from the filmEmmerichhe decides to make a gory and cynical comedy which has the particularity of having no hero, no “Saviour” and a rather pessimistic tone. He draws his aesthetic from old sci-fi films from the 50s and gives his Martians a vintage look with enormous brains.

Despite the film’s cynicism and pessimism, he decided to make it a comedy after watching The infernal tower (with Paul Newman And Steve McQueen) while being completely stoned, finding the disaster movie hilarious. He gives his story a memorable cast so that the magic happens. The president of the United States (Jack Nicholson) is incompetent and decides to run away with his wife (Glenn Close). The scientist responsible for communicating with the Martians (Pierce Brosnan) gets kidnapped with a celebrity journalist (Sarah Jessica Parker) and both are the subject of bizarre experiments.

Her boyfriend (Michael J. Fox) is a journalist covering the welcome ceremony which turns into a disaster, while courageous Marines (including a nag played by Jack Black) are trying to fight back. The rest of the invasion unfolds in a wave of chaos, seeing one after the other Pam Grier, Tom Jones Who’s playing Tom Jones, Danny DeVito, Natalie Portman And Annette Bening. So, convinced? Mars Attacks! is broadcast this evening on France 5 at 9:05 p.m.

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