Trivia / Ghosts of Mars

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Ice Cube signed on purely to work with John Carpenter.
• Box Office Bomb: Made for a budget of $28 million, and only made $14 million worldwide. Fortunately, it did well enough on DVD that it was mildly profitable in the end, but it was enough to convince Carpenter to retire from directing for another couple years.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Jason Statham was originally supposed to play Desolation until they managed to sign on Ice Cube, who was a much bigger name at the time.
• Creator Killer: While his career had been going downhill for much of The '90s, this was the film that finally ended John Carpenter's days as a mainstream filmmaker. It was four years before he directed another project, and he didn't direct another theatrical film until The Ward in 2010, which sank without a trace.
• Divorced Installment: It's been rumoured the film started life as Escape From Mars, the long-talked-about third Snake Plissken film, though that was also mentioned as Escape From Earth. Certainly it's possible ideas for Escape... ended up in Ghosts....
• Duelling Movies: With Mission to Mars and Red Planet, both of which were released the previous year. This film finished in the middle of the duel, coming behind Mission to Mars in terms of critical and box-office performance, but being more profitable and slightly better-reviewed than Red Planet.
• Old Shame: This is widely regarded as John Carpenter's worst movie and it would be the last one he made for almost ten years. Ice Cube also disliked the film as well.
  Ice Cube: I don't like that movie. I'm a big fan of John Carpenter and the only reason I did it was because John Carpenter directed it but they really didn't have the money to pull the special effects off.
• The Other Marty: Natasha Henstridge replaced Courtney Love (the original choice) at the last minute. Love left the project after her boyfriend's ex-wife ran over her foot in her car while she was in training for the picture.
• What Could Have Been: Famke Janssen, Franka Potente and Michelle Yeoh were considered for Lieutenant Melanie Ballard.

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