Tim Burton (“Batman”), alongside Steven Spielberg, were filmmakers that embraced early digital effects in the 1990s to create creatures, Spielberg with man-eating dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” and Burton with creepy little aliens in his 1996 satire “Mars Attacks!.” Well, it looks like Burton also had a dino itch he wanted to scratch, too but in a more gory fashion.
“Mars Attacks!” screenwriter Jonathan Gems spoke with Inverse, revealing how an oddball birthday gift led to Burton’s desire to make a disaster film. Gems had picked up a collection of both “Mars Attacks!” and “Dinosaur Attacks!” cards, crude, violent depictions of aliens and dinosaurs killing humans in various ways for shock value.
READ MORE: ‘Wednesday’: Jenna Ortega Lands Lead Role In Tim Burton’s ‘Addams Family’ Spinoff Series
“I was working with Tim 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.’ They had these fantastic little oil paintings of these atrocities,” Gems said of the origin of the idea of turning the cards into feature films.
The interesting part is that the filmmaker originally wanted to do “Dinosaurs Attack!” before learning that “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” was going to have a dinosaur running amok in a populated city.
Gems explained why they pivoted, “Originally, it was going to be ‘Dinosaurs Attack.’ 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.”
“Mars Attacks!” ended up a box office flop for Tim Burton and became a bit of a cautionary tale that special effects alone wouldn’t put asses in seats. However, it would have been interesting to have a studio put up the money for an extremely violent dinosaur movie with real production value, unlike the stuff that schlock producer Roger Corman was grinding out with his cheese but gory “Carnosaur” movies.
This wouldn’t be the first time Tim Burton abandoned plans to make weird genre projects; he once tried to make a “Superman” movie starring Nicolas Cage, but it never came to fruition.