Ack ack ack! Mars Attacks, Tim Burton's quirky alien invasion follow up to the likes of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, has become a bona fide cult classic in the twenty-five years since it was released in 1996. Starring the likes of Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close, along with an early career Jack Black and a Pierce Brosnan hot on the heels of GoldenEye, it's both a glorious homage to terrible B-movies and a testament to Burton's affinity for the weird. But, as the film's writers revealed to Inverse in a wide sweeping oral history, it almost wasn't made.
As it turns out, the inspiration for the project came from a birthday present. As Jonathan Gems, one of the two screenwriters, reveals:
"I was working with [Burton] on something else. It was his birthday, and I was looking for a birthday present. It was difficult to find anything for him because he had everything. I was in a kind of gift store, and on the counter, I saw a complete collection of two sets of cards. These were cards that were like baseball cards. There were two sets, one called Dinosaurs Attack and another called Mars Attacks."
Initially, Burton wanted to make a film based on Dinosaurs Attack - perhaps the more immediately obvious fit for a creature feature of disastrous proportions, given it would follow the hugely commercially successful Jurassic Park. But then, of course, an actual Jurassic Park sequel came and, in Gems' words:
"But then we found out Steven Spielberg was doing a sequel to Jurassic Park, and they were going to have dinosaurs attacking Los Angeles. Tim said, 'Let’s do it as a disaster movie.' Tim and I actually watched Towering Inferno probably about a year before, and we were stoned. And if you watch Towering Inferno when you’re stoned, it’s hilariously funny."
As one might expect, some of the other interviewees characterize Jack Nicholson, on the precipice of starring in James L. Brooks' As Good as It Gets, as a complete force of nature. "He'd always go home at 6:00 and, I believe, want to go to the golf course," relays DOP Peter Suschitzky. Burton, on the other hand, remembers another funny detail: "Every time Jack was President, we played Hail to the Chief as he came onto the set." Imagine seeing that? Bill Pullman wishes!