Box Office Bomb: Budget: $70,000,000; Gross: $37,781,197 (domestic), $101,381,197 (worldwide). Coming out several months after the phenomenon that was Independence Day didn’t help this film’s chances at the box-office.
The Merch: Trendmasters had two toylines, one based on the movie; the other based on Topps' 90s-era trading-card/comic book series.
Promoted Fanboy: Tim Burton was a fan of the original trading card series.
Prop Recycling: Jeff Dunham fans, Achmed the Dead Terrorist's eyes are an old, spare pair of Martian eyes from this movie.
Serendipity Writes the Plot: The destruction of the Galaxy Hotel was not a special effect — production just so happened to coincide with the demolition of the actual Landmark Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, so they filmed that and then put it in the movie with only a few CGI touch-ups. Burton had stayed at the Landmark in the past and was upset that they were tearing it down, and so he wanted to immortalize it in film.
Uncredited Role: Tim Burton co-wrote the film with Jonathan Gems, but insisted on Gems getting sole credit. As a tip of the hat, Gems dedicated the novelization to him.
Frequent Burton collaborator Johnny Depp turned down the role of reporter Jason Stone.
Warren Beatty was originally cast as the U.S. President. Paul Newman was cast when Beatty dropped out, but then left the project over the violence concerns.
Another Burton collaborator Michael Keaton was considered for Art Land before Jack Nicholson asked to play him after he was already cast as the President.
Hugh Grant was considered for Donald Kessler before Pierce Bronsan was cast.
Tim Burton wanted to show far more worldwide destruction in the final film, but budget restraints prevented him from doing so. The script was originally going to show the Martians invading and attacking Chinanote Likely either Beijing or Hong Kong, Moscownote St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, and the Kremlin, Tokyonote This was alluded to with a scene of the Martians watching Godzilla vs. Biollante to simulate the Martian attack on Japan to make up for it, Africanote Likely either Egypt or South Africa, though it most likely would have been Egypt due to the Pyramids, Manila, Athensnote The Parthenon, Berlinnote Brandenburg Gate, Romenote The Coliseum, and Brusselsnote Likely including the Martians killing off both the leaders of NATO and the European Union's leaders much like they did with Congress and the French government, as well as expanding the destruction scenes in Parisnote The Arc de Triomphe, the Martians altering Paris' famous Louvre paintings and statues like with the Rushmore Refacement scene, Londonnote Buckingham Palace and possibly killing off the Royal Family, and Indianote New Delhi or another major Indian city, but the finished film shortened the worldwide destruction montage to just the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Easter Islands Moai, and the Taj Mahal.
The script also called for New York City to be destroyed in addition to Las Vegas, with the Martians destroying Manhattan building by building which would have included the Empire State Building, with the only hint being in a blink-and-you-miss-it shot later on, where we see the Twin Towers tumbling over like giant dominoes. They were also supposed to destroy the White House after they finished invading it. Both ideas were scrapped because of the film's budget. New York was replaced ultimately with Las Vegas due to its smaller scale, and the White House destruction scene was dropped as to avoid comparisons to Independence Day, which had a similar but far more iconic scene of the White House being destroyed by aliens (said movie also had New York City being destroyed as well). The finished film kept the destruction of the Washington Monument (in homage to Earth vs. the Flying Saucers) and showed the Capitol Building in ruins at the end.
The same budget and production time problems also caused the original idea to have the Martians animated in stop-motion to be discarded in favor of CGI.
Byron was originally supposed to die at the end of the film, this was retained in the novel.
The script included a scene of surviving flying saucers fleeing Earth and returning to Mars, likely setting up a planned Sequel Hook with them returning in a sequel that never planned out due to the film's underperforming at the box office.
Trading Cards:
Follow the Leader: Somehow, the TCG series is popular enough to inspire a knockoff from the other side of the Atlantic, the Pachimon series which deals with monsters instead of aliens.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: The original series was discontinued prematurely, thus, original cards are rare and quite expensive.
Channel Hop: The comic series was published by Topps who briefly had a comic line. It has since been revived by IDW. Then a few years later by Dynamite.
What Could Have Been: At one point, one of the writers of IDW pitched a crossover comic with My Little Pony, as part of the Mars Attacks crossover one-shots. It never got off the ground likely due to similar fears both Moral Guardians and Hasbro had based on the possible concept and reality of seeing Martians slaughtering beloved children characters, especially after the surprisingly violent crossover Mars Attack! had with Hasbro's other beloved franchise in The Transformers, even though the plot would have been a typical Pony fare (similar to the crossover Mars Attacks! had with Popeye), which would involve Princess Celestia casting a spell to disable the Martians' weapons (which would have prevented the Martians from horribly killing the Ponies outright), causing them to find hilarious new ways to attack the ponies only to fail and eventually learn the magic of friendship. The Martians would return to their own dimension to spread love & tolerance, only to confuse their fellow Martians that didn't visit Equestria. Alas, the Cross Through came and went, and no ponies.... note The only remnant of the crossover was a Shout-Out in a Mars Attacks! comic cover showing a Martian in a mech suit chasing after a humanized Applejack.
