Invaders From Mars 1986/Fun Facts

• During the scene where U.S. Marines invade the school, the extras are actual Marines from 4th FAAD Battery, a Marine Reserve unit in Pasadena, California.

• Wade Williams had acquired the rights to Invaders from Mars. For the remake rights, Williams received over 50 times the amount he had paid. Williams had already made a very handsome profit from the original film from television, cable and video releases.

• Near the beginning of the film the parents are getting David Gardner ready for bad and start shuffling things around his bedroom. The father picks up a magazine and starts to read it. The magazine was a late 70's slick fanzine called Fantascene. That issue had a very fine article on the making of the original Invaders from Mars.

• When Linda and David are hiding in the boiler room, the police enter and while searching for them the "Globe Head" Martian from the original film can be seen sitting atop a cabinet.

• Jimmy Hunt, who played young David MacLean in the original Invaders from Mars and the police chief in this remake, actually has more than almost a dozen lines, not just one as reported by a reviewer. When he and Officer Keeney go up the hill in search of Mr. Gardner, Hunt's line of "Gee, I haven't been up here since I was a kid" is a playful reference to the similar area of Martian activity that he witnessed as the boy in the 1953 movie.

• The Martian drones were performed by two people back-to-back in one suit. A little person was carried in a sort of backpack on the back of a normal-sized performer. The little person would operate the drone's mouth and smaller arms (as seen when the drones load their weapons) while the full-sized performer made the creature walk and used ski poles to move the longer arms (as seen when the drones "salute" Mrs. McKeltch). The full-sized performer faced the rear of the suit and had to walk backwards so that the creature's knee joints would bend in a "not-human" fashion when it walked.

• The scanning device that Bud Cort uses in the elementary school basement is the same prop used by Saavik (Kirstie Alley) in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when investigating the Regula I station with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy.

• Only two Martian drone suits were made for the production (there are never more than two drones in a shot in the scenes aboard the Martian ship).

• Early in development Steven Spielberg was in talks to direct.