The Flaming Lips have completed shooting on their feature film “Christmas on Mars,” which has been in the works for several years. The movie centers around scientists preparing to celebrate their first Christmas in space. “We transferred it all down to computer land within the last couple of days,” Lips frontman Wayne Coyne tells Billboard.com. “Now I just have to remember what it is that we were trying to say [laughs].”
“I think it’s going to be a great, unique side road to what we’ve been all along,” he continues. “The Flaming Lips’ audience has pushed us that way. With a lot of rock bands, maybe the audience would say, ‘What are you guys doing?’ But with us, it almost feels like, ‘Go! Do it! See what happens!’ People don’t realize how powerful that is, to have people that believe in you and encourage you. The Flaming Lips are living proof that if you believe in people enough, they can do something. This movie is that, in a way.”
Over the course of the next few months, Coyne will begin offering teaser clips on the Internet to gauge fan response. He is hoping that “Christmas on Mars” would be ready for consumption by the end of next summer, by which time the Lips will be touring in support of their nearly finished next Warner Bros. album, “At War With the Mystics.”
“We could take the movie around as well, and not just be playing as the Flaming Lips as a rock band,” Coyne says. “I’m thinking of taking it to theaters and having it be an experience where we bring in giant sound systems, smoke machines, Christmas lights, s*** falls on you from the ceiling and you can smoke pot and do whatever you want. There’s something about the communal experience while something intense and unexpected is happening. I’m sure it will come out on DVD and there’ll be a soundtrack, but that isn’t the real experience.”
