The original script for MARS ATTACKS! It was much darker and the writer got fired for burning cows

We recently shared some fun info on how Tim Burton’S Mars Attacks! the film was originally conceived as Dinosaur Attack!. Topps originally had trading cards for Mars Attacks! AND Dinosaur Attacks! and Burton, along with the screenwriter Jonathan Gemme I initially thought a movie about dinosaurs attacking cities was a great idea, and it was! That movie would have been fun and awesome! But after Steven Spielberg started working on his Jurassic Park sequels, they decided to shift their focus to Mars Attacks!

Then, Gems had to work on the script! He and Burton were trying to make a completely insane movie that would match the chaos of the images on the trading cards that the movie was based on. However, some things were too much for the studio to handle during the development process. Gems wrote an opening scene involving a herd of cows running down a burning road. This scene actually made it into the movie, but Gems was actually fired for it! During an interview with Inverse, Gems explained what happened:

“I had problems with the studio because they asked me to make changes and sometimes I didn’t. They told me you can’t have cows on fire at the beginning of the film. I thought it was a good opening. Every time I made a new draft, they’d say, “The cows are still in. We can’t have cows on fire.” I said, “It’s not real cows that are burning.” But they said, ‘No, you can’t do that – cruelty to animals.’ I think it was the 11th draft, they said, “If burning cows are in the next draft, you’ll be fired.” So I tried but couldn’t think of anything better, so I handed in the new script with the cows on fire. And they fired me.”

Burton opened up about that scene, saying, “That’s one of the cards. It’s a nice picture, cows on fire. It’s always funny when studios fight to throw things away. This is basically why you are doing this. It’s so insane that they fired him for it, especially since the scene ended up in the movie. I guess Burton kept fighting for it, and he won!

After Gems was fired, the studio took over Larry Karaszewski AND Scott Alexander, which Ed Wood previously wrote for Burton. When they came in to check out the script, Alexander explained that the script Gems worked on was much darker than what the film ended up being. The new writers obviously lightened it up a bit. Alexander explained what made it darker:

“The script had many interesting ideas, but it was impossible to follow the stories. Jonathan’s script had an index finger on the back, which I have never seen on any other script to date. The original draft was also much darker than the film. Some of the characters were on drugs. Many of the female characters were strippers and drug addicts. And we had a feeling that if the other studio across town was making Independence Day, which will be Roland Emmerich and kind of serious, then the Tim/Warner Brothers version should be just kind of funny.

Karaszewski went on to reveal that their biggest contribution to the film “by far is ‘Ack ack ack.'” And that’s how the Martians communicated. I always thought it was fun! Alexander went on to explain, “Jonathan’s screenplay was mostly written in prose. And while we were doing that, we kind of realized that if you put the Martians’ “Ack ack ack” into the dialogue, you could actually get the beat.

Karaszewski and Alexander had to work hard and fast because Burton “was just trying to keep the film alive”. There was so much pressure on the writers that their final draft is actually dated July 4th ’95. “We were at the office on the evening of July 4th with fireworks.”

But they handed in the script and Burton went to the races!