The Inspiration
The Story
As Many Stars as in the Heavens
Little Green Men and Other Special Effects
Production Design
Costume Design, Hair and Make-Up
The Martian Girl
On Location: Washington, D.C.
On Location: The Heartland
On Location: Viva Las Vegas!
On Location: Martian Desert Landing
Life On Mars

Principal photography began in Los Angeles on the stages of Warner Hollywood Studios, where the production company took over all but one of the lot's seven sound stages for the first six weeks of filming. The sets were mainly reproductions of the Washington, D.C. locales, including the White House, Oval Office, "War Room," Congressional chamber and press room.

Topps' original "Mars Attacks!" series had depicted a fiery assault on the nation's capital in Card #5, "Washington in Flames," and Burton knew all along that Washington, D.C., would figure as a primary location.

After completing filming on the sound stages at Warner Hollywood, the production company set off for the District of Columbia to film exteriors of the assault on the Nation's Capitol, capturing shots of Washington's landmarks, including the White House, the Washington Monument and the Mall. The story also called for a massive scene to be staged in front of the Capitol Building as the Martian Ambassador addresses Congress (a scene already filmed in Los Angeles) while General Decker and his troops stand watch outside.

The production staff assembled an impressive display of military strength with 100 assorted Army personnel in a sea of tanks, howitzers, Jeeps and Army tanks -- in addition to a couple hundred spectators -- all gathered at the foot of the lawn facing The Capitol.

Producer Larry Franco and location manager KOKAYI AMPAH found themselves negotiating with three different branches of government -- the department of parks and recreation, the local city police, and the federal police -- each responsible for its own stretch of territory to be included in one scene. The result was a delicate navigation between the three jurisdictions, and with only a few setbacks, the scene was filmed.

On Location: The Heartland

After completing filming in Washington, D.C., the "Mars Attacks!" crew relocated to the tall grass plains of Kansas to film the scenes set in Perkinsville, Kansas, primarily featuring Lukas Haas' Richie Norris and his grandmother, played by Sylvia Sidney, a Tim Burton veteran from "Beetlejuice."

The screenplay was specific in its description of Perkinsville as a small Midwestern town which would contrast sharply with the urban settings of Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas. On a scouting trip to the region, production designer Wynn Thomas fell in love with the town of Burns, Kansas, located approximately 40 miles northeast of Wichita, with an official population of 225.

In Burns, the production built a donut shop where Richie works part-time. Inspired by Los Angeles' landmark eatery Randee's Donuts, Burton conceived of "Donut World" as a modest-sized bungalow with a two-story-tall chocolate donut erected on the roof.

The construction crew built the donut in pieces and transported it from Los Angeles on wide-load flatbed trailers. When assembled, the donut measured 26 feet in diameter with a six-foot donut hole. To withstand the constant prairie winds, the donut featured a steel inner construction, covered with urethane foam and a resin (not chocolate) coating.

Production designer Wynn Thomas notes, "Burns had all the classic American images that we think of when we think of the Heartland. Then you put this L.A.-style donut shop in the middle of all that, and as a result, there's a kind of clash. It becomes a Tim Burton movie because there's a clash of these two very distinct images co-existing on screen."

Popular conversation among citizens of the area became centered on "blowing the donut," referring to the detonation of the donut for a climactic scene. During the alien attack on Perkinsville, a Martian flying saucer fires on the huge donut that sits atop Donut World, exploding it into a mass of flames and charred, hurling donut holes.

In addition to the sequences set in Perkinsville, Burton also filmed the surreal opening scene of "Mars Attacks!" in the neighboring town of Lawrence, Kansas. Inspired by Topps' trading card #22, "Burning Cattle," the scene depicts a Kentucky farmer and his family watching in horror as a flaming herd of cattle stampedes by them.

On Location: Viva Las Vegas!

From the earliest drafts of the screenplay, Tim Burton knew that his story had to include a Martian attack on Las Vegas. "Las Vegas is constantly being re-done. It's this constantly evolving fantasy land," Burton says. And besides, he adds, "These movies always have deserts."

Producer Franco explains the source of Burton's kitschy Vegas: "Tim sees Las Vegas like it was in the `60s, when he used to travel there on weekends when he was in school. His version of Vegas is bright colors, polyester leisure suits, and noisy, flashing lights."

Burton notes that of all the locations, Las Vegas presented perhaps the greatest challenges. "Each place had its own unique charm, but I think Vegas was the hardest one to shoot. They've got a lot of things going on there, and it's not like they're hurting for money."

Tim Burton chose to film at The Luxor hotel and casino, which opened on the Strip in 1994. Its Egyptian motif was appropriately heady for the film, but the production company had to endure restrictions imposed by filming on location in an operating establishment. During the week and a half of shooting in the casino's interior, the crew worked from 11:00 in the evening until 8:00 in the morning, hours the casino determined to be their off period.

To film the Martian attack on the streets of Las Vegas, the production company secured permission to shut down traffic on the main thoroughfare, Las Vegas Boulevard. From midnight to 6:00 a.m., the crew closed a stretch of the Strip to stage the Martian siege. Crowds of shiny-and-snazzy extras and stunt personnel fled through the streets as the pyrotechnics team launched flames and explosions in their path.

Other Vegas locales included the Yesco Sign Yard, an old neon graveyard that is the final resting place for the oversized signage of Vegas' past, and a Las Vegas residence that served as the home of Art and Barbara Land -- complete with its own swimming pool located in the middle of the house's living room.

Amid the Martian onslaught, Art Land holds tight to his dream of opening his state-of-the-art Galaxy Hotel. As the backdrop for this sub-plot, Burton wanted to use a real-life hotel and found the right silhouette from the Vegas skyline in the Landmark Hotel, which had been shut down and scheduled for demolition as "Mars Attacks!" was in pre-production. The hotel's Jetsonesque architectural style nicely coincided with Burton's visual concept for the film.

The Landmark was first opened in 1969 by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, and with 31 stories rising 365 feet into the sky, the structure once boasted itself to be the tallest building in the state of Nevada. Constantly beleaguered by financial difficulties, the hotel closed in 1990 and was scheduled to be razed to make way for convention center parking.

Producer Larry Franco recalls, "When I came onto the project, one of the things that Tim was most concerned about was the Landmark implosion. He had stayed at the hotel on a few occasions and felt a genuine sadness at its destruction."

Burton elaborates nostalgically, "I had seen pictures of buildings go before, but there was something about seeing this which was really shocking. There's just no sense of history in this country, and if I could have saved it, I would have."

The next best thing, Burton decided, was to immortalize the Landmark on film and shoot the structure's implosion. With 120 pounds of strategically placed dynamite, a professional demolition company flattened the building in a matter of seconds. Burton remembers, "We were there all night, and when it finally happened, it was so depressing. It was like seeing an animal die."

The exterior footage from the Landmark implosion was edited together with interior scenes shot in Los Angeles. Thomas and his staff had devised a 40-foot background photo of the Vegas skyline to hang outside the windows of the L.A. set of Art Land's office. "Instead of moving the entire set, which would be very expensive, I would move elements outside the set and explode the windows. That way, it would look as though the building was collapsing," says Thomas. "Tim wanted the destruction to be bigger, at which point we designed the floor so that it could rise and sink and then fall."

The decor of the room itself is quite stunning, featuring an ornate design with celestial blue murals and glittering orbs. "In the script, it's described as an office, but I decided that it was an opportunity to do something a little more stylistic -- which I think was appropriate for the character," Thomas explains.

On Location: Martian Desert Landing

The filmmakers staged the site of the first Martian landing at Red Lake, Arizona, a dry lake bed some 20 miles outside of Kingman. Huge banners heralding "Welcome to Earth" festooned the grandstands erected for visiting dignitaries and a military band.

This was without a doubt the most logistically challenging portion of the shoot, with over 1200 cast, crew and background extras shuttled to the remote location and having to brave extreme conditions of heat and wind.

The desert landing scene also features a huge assemblage of Army power, tanks, helicopters and several hundred extras garbed in military attire.

"The look of the soldiers comes straight from the cards," says costume designer Colleen Atwood. "It's the generic Army from every movie that you've ever seen. All the police and the military are represented as cookie cutout-type people that are all totally generic."

Producer Larry Franco offers, "Tim portrays things that are the way he sees them. For instance, the Army is green, and that's all it is -- no ranks, no name tags, just non-descript green. They look like little Army play things, little G.I. Joes."

Life on Mars

With the recent revelation by NASA that a crashed meteorite seems to indicate the existence of simple life on Mars, the timing of "Mars Attacks!" seems particularly serendipitous.

However, the bug-eyed marauders in the film are no single-celled organisms. Danny DeVito draws the fine comparison between them: "They're okay when they're fossils, these little wormy things. When they turn into these big-headed green people coming at you with laser guns, that's when you have to worry about them."

Tim Burton quips that the discovery was actually a "cheap publicity stunt" orchestrated by the studio for the film and that the ongoing appeal of the "invaders from outer space" genre is not related to scientific discoveries. The real reason for making a film like "Mars Attacks!" is actually something very basic:

As he simply states, "I just like monsters."

Warner Bros. Presents A Film by Tim Burton: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan and Danny DeVito in "Mars Attacks!," starring Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Jim Brown, Lisa Marie and Sylvia Sidney. The music is by Danny Elfman. The film is edited by Chris Lebenzon; the production is designed by Wynn Thomas; and Peter Suschitzky is the director of photography. The screen story and screenplay are by Jonathan Gems, based upon "Mars Attacks!" by Topps. The producers are Tim Burton and Larry Franco. "Mars Attacks!" is directed by Tim Burton and distributed by Warner Bros., A Time Warner Entertainment Company.