A quest to save mom from Martians

MANILA, Philippines –  The bestselling children’s book Mars Needs Moms by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed blasts off to the big screen as an eye-popping 3D animated adventure from the team behind Disney’s A Christmas Carol and The Polar Express. The Walt Disney film showcases nine-year-old Milo’s (Seth Green) quest to save his mom (Joan Cusack) from Martians. What follows is a wild adventure that involves stowing away on a spaceship, navigating an elaborate, multi-level planet and taking on the alien nation and their leader.

Breathed was moved to write the book Mars Needs Moms after an eventful dinner at home. “One night my son Milo threw his broccoli into the air and stormed from the table — a scene depicted with more civility in the movie,” says Breathed. “Upon leaving, he said something about his mother too vile to repeat here — which would only result in expensive therapy later if he ever remembered. From out of nowhere came my next line: ‘You might think differently about your mom if she were kidnapped by Martians.’ I spun on my heels and wrote the book that night. The rest is Disney history.”

ImageMovers Digital and the Disney team embraced the project, tapping Simon Wells to direct and co-write the script with wife Wendy. The writing partners have been married for 23 years, and daughters Meredith and Teagan are featured as Martian Hatchlings in the movie. The film follows in the footsteps of ImageMovers Digital’s roster of well-received family fare, The Polar Express and Monster House, bringing the story to the big screen in 3D via performance capture. The technique digitally captures the performances of the actors with computerized cameras in a full 360 degrees, allowing filmmakers to transport audiences to Mars — and back — creating elaborate out-of-this-world settings and characters while capitalizing on the expert performances of the cast.

The director says the action, the adventure and humor will explode on the big screen — thanks in no small part to the fact that it will be presented in 3D and shown on IMAX screens. But Wells says it’s the heart of the film that first attracted them. “The film has an amazing center to it which is the mother’s love for the child and the child’s realization about that love,” he says. “And that really spoke to me. It spoke to my wife and writing partner, Wendy. And we built the whole thing around that central moment, which was the whole reason why Berkeley wrote the original book in the first place.”

Producer Jack Rapke says the idea of aliens coming to Earth in search of our mother expertise is a rich one. “The women who are running Mars are very totalitarian and very OCD — not maternal at all,” says Rapke. “They know that in the solar system, there is a planet called Earth, with a species of humans whose moms seem to be able to control offspring. So they need one every 25 years or so and they send their Martian raiders down to Earth to get one — who, this time, just happens to be Milo’s mom.”

Wells, who’s the great grandson of sci-fi author H.G. Wells, says the film capitalizes on the audiences’ natural curiosity about outer space and thirst for action. “You’re shot at and chased and you discover things. You get to experience environments that you would never in your normal lives get to see. You get to travel on a huge heroic journey in pursuit of the noblest cause of all, which is to save your mum because you love her.”

Opening soon in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D and regular format, Mars Needs Moms is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.