Studios were obsessed with Mars at the start of the new millennium, though movies about the red planet ultimately failed to make green. Walt Disney struck first, releasing Mission To Mars on March 6, 2000, while Warner Brothers released Red Planet five months later on November 10, 2000 — but both failed to impress critics or moviegoers. Red Planet bombed big time, banking just $33 million worldwide on a $80 million budget, a failure that put a significant drag on Val Kilmer's career. Mission To Mars benefited slightly from coming out first, though it still only netted $110 million worldwide on a $100 million budget.
Mission to Mars is set in 2020, which in 2000 seemed like a reasonable time frame for manned spaceflight to Mars — after all, NASA had launched the Mars Climate Orbiter only one year prior. But today, humanity is still a long way from setting foot on the red planet, though sending astronauts to the moon by 2024 and to Mars within the next decade "by any means necessary" remains a priority for NASA. Alas, no amount of monetary support could have saved Mission To Mars. Despite starring Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins and being directed by Brian De Palma, this sci-fi suspense story about the first manned mission to Mars has a blandness that killed its chances with critics, who savaged it as a shallow spectacle. 2001: A Space Odyssey this was not.
