# Mars Needs Moms
**Mars Needs Moms** is a 2011 American 3D performance-capture animated science-fiction comedy film directed by Simon Wells, based on Berkeley Breathed's illustrated book of the same title, in which nine-year-old Milo stows away to Mars to rescue his mother from Martians who extract her "mom-ness" to program their nannybots.[1](https://movies.disney.com/mars-needs-moms) • [2](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms) It was produced by [Robert Zemeckis](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-zemeckis)'s ImageMovers for Walt Disney Pictures and released on March 11, 2011, rated PG, with a running time of 88 minutes.[1](https://movies.disney.com/mars-needs-moms) • [2](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | March 11, 2011, wide theatrical release; PG (Sci-Fi Action and Peril); 1h 28m[1](https://movies.disney.com/mars-needs-moms) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) |
| Director and writers | Directed by Simon Wells; written by Simon and Wendy Wells, based on the illustrated book by Berkeley Breathed[2](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms) |
| Principal cast | Seth Green (Milo, motion capture), Joan Cusack (Mom), Dan Fogler (Gribble), Elisabeth Harnois (Ki), Mindy Sterling (the Supervisor)[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) |
| Technique | Performance capture: actors perform wearing suits with luminous markers, and the data is digitally converted into animated characters[4](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/has-3d-had-its-day-with-mars-needs-moms-7424343.html) |
| Box office | $21.4 million gross in the United States against a budget reported at $150 million[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) • [5](https://time.com/4421142/directors-defend-worst-movies-ever/) |
| Critical reception | 34% on the Tomatometer from 111 reviews; 40% on the audience Popcornmeter from more than 25,000 ratings[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) |
| Aftermath | The film's failure led Disney to sever its links with Zemeckis's ImageMovers studio, and it was the last motion-captured film released by ImageMovers Digital[2](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms) • [6](https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/document/56963) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Milo is a nine-year-old boy who resents his mother's nagging about homework, vegetables, and bedtime, and tells her that life would be more fun without her. Just then, Martians kidnap her. On Mars, a female-led society raises its young with nannybots, and the robots must be programmed with the parenting skills, the "mom-ness", of abducted human mothers; the extraction is fatal to the donor. Milo stows away on the Martians' spaceship to launch a rescue, and if he cannot save his mother before the programming, she will die.[1](https://movies.disney.com/mars-needs-moms) • [7](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/mars-needs-moms) • [8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305591/plotsummary/)
On Mars, Milo befriends Gribble, an older human who survived an earlier abduction as a boy, and Ki, a Martian girl who has learned English from repeated viewings of a 1960s television program. In the climax, Gribble gives his space helmet to Milo's mother before the Martians, showing them the one thing they had overlooked about Earth mothers: love for their children.[7](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/mars-needs-moms) • [8](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305591/plotsummary/)
## Production
The film came from producer Robert Zemeckis and the team behind *Disney's A Christmas Carol*, with Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, Steve Starkey, and Steven Boyd producing.[9](https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/media/dvc/languagespecific/eng/member/justformembers/disneyfilesmagazine/2011/Disney%20Files%20Spring%202011.pdf) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) It was animated at ImageMovers Digital, the motion-capture studio Zemeckis had founded and that had joined forces with Disney.[6](https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/document/56963)
**Casting and performance.** [Seth Green](https://www.edgepedia.org/seth-green) provided the motion-capture movements and voice for Milo, but his vocal performance was replaced in post-production by that of child actor Seth Dusky.[10](https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/103271867/2014_Holliday_Christopher_0943585_ethesis.pdf) Production designer Doug Chiang described his greatest challenge as delineating the difference between a warm, friendly home on Earth and a cold, gray world on Mars, and noted that the facial animation represented an advance on what the studio's software and computing power had previously allowed.[11](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/putting-new-face-mars-needs-moms)
**From book to feature.** Berkeley Breathed's source is an illustrated book, and the filmmakers had to expand it considerably: had they filmed just the book, Disney would have had a ten-minute short. The added middle section, in which Milo befriends Gribble, formed the bulk of the feature.[12](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-mar-10-la-et-word-20110310-story.html)
## Box office failure and consequences
The film opened in more than 3,000 theaters and scored the 22nd-lowest opening ever for a release that wide; adjusted for inflation, one retrospective listing ranks it as the fourth-largest box office failure in film history.[13](https://www.netflixmovies.com/mars-needs-moms-2011) It grossed $21.4 million in the United States, against a budget which had ballooned to unprecedented heights.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) • [5](https://time.com/4421142/directors-defend-worst-movies-ever/) The loss dragged down Walt Disney Studios' results in its fiscal second quarter of 2011.[14](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2011-may-11-la-fi-ct-disney-earns-20110511-story.html)
**End of the ImageMovers partnership.** The failure led Disney to sever its links with Zemeckis's ImageMovers studio, and *Mars Needs Moms* was the last motion-captured film released by ImageMovers Digital.[2](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms) • [6](https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/document/56963) Disney also killed Zemeckis's planned 3D version of *Yellow Submarine* after the film's box-office failure.[15](https://time.com/4609386/best-animated-films/)
**Explanations offered at the time.** BoxOffice.com analyst Phil Contrino blamed an oversaturated market; others suggested the word "moms" in the title turned off young male fans. Most decisive of all, according to *Time*, was that the film looked weird, with audiences notably rejecting the motion-capture technology, which made the cast look drastically different.[5](https://time.com/4421142/directors-defend-worst-movies-ever/)
## Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds 34% on the Tomatometer from 111 reviews, with a critics consensus that the cast is solid and the film visually well-crafted but that it suffers from a lack of imagination and heart; the audience Popcornmeter stands at 40% from more than 25,000 ratings.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) Peter Bradshaw of *The Guardian* called the script lame and unthought-through, while his colleague Philip French found the performance-capture process uninteresting here as in Zemeckis's earlier uses of the technique.[16](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/apr/07/mars-needs-moms-film-review) • [17](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/apr/10/mars-needs-moms-review) Reviews were not uniformly negative: Jim Schembri of *The Age* gave it 4 out of 5, praising visuals that used motion capture to a degree surpassing *Avatar*.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms) Common Sense Media called it a surprisingly tender and sweet adventure with a noteworthy comedic voice cast, while noting that scenes in which the mother appears to die can frighten young viewers.[7](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/mars-needs-moms)
The Science Fiction Encyclopedia describes the film as a composite of [H. G. Wells](https://www.edgepedia.org/h-g-wells) material, a connection through director Simon Wells, the great-grandson of the novelist's second cousin by marriage as the entry frames the family link, drawing on *The Time Machine* (1895), *The War of the Worlds* (1898), and *When the Sleeper Wakes* (1899), and notes that the title alludes to the 1967 television film *Mars Needs Women*.[2](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms)
## Legacy
The film's commercial collapse is widely treated as the end of Zemeckis's run of performance-capture features, which had begun with *The Polar Express* (2004) and continued through *Beowulf* (2007) and *A Christmas Carol* (2009).[6](https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/document/56963) • [5](https://time.com/4421142/directors-defend-worst-movies-ever/)
## References
1. [Mars Needs Moms, Disney Movies](https://movies.disney.com/mars-needs-moms)
2. [Mars Needs Moms, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars_needs_moms)
3. [Mars Needs Moms, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars_needs_moms)
4. [Has 3D had its day with Mars Needs Moms?, London Evening Standard](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/has-3d-had-its-day-with-mars-needs-moms-7424343.html)
5. [10 Directors Defend Their Most Disappointing Movies Ever, Time](https://time.com/4421142/directors-defend-worst-movies-ever/)
6. [Mars Needs... the 'Human Element', University of Kent (Kar)](https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/document/56963)
7. [Mars Needs Moms: Parents' Guide & Movie Review, Common Sense Media](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/mars-needs-moms)
8. [Mars Needs Moms (2011) - Plot, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305591/plotsummary/)
9. [Disney Files Magazine, Spring 2011, Disney Vacation Club](https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/media/dvc/languagespecific/eng/member/justformembers/disneyfilesmagazine/2011/Disney%20Files%20Spring%202011.pdf)
10. [Mars Needs... the 'Human Element' (thesis chapter), King's College London](https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/103271867/2014_Holliday_Christopher_0943585_ethesis.pdf)
11. [Putting a New Face on 'Mars Needs Moms', Animation World Network](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/putting-new-face-mars-needs-moms)
12. [Word of Mouth: 'Mars Needs Moms' needs to capture more buzz, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-mar-10-la-et-word-20110310-story.html)
13. [Mars Needs Moms (2011) on Netflix, NetflixMovies.com](https://www.netflixmovies.com/mars-needs-moms-2011)
14. ['Mars Needs Moms' drags down Disney's earnings, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2011-may-11-la-fi-ct-disney-earns-20110511-story.html)
15. [The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films, Time](https://time.com/4609386/best-animated-films/)
16. [Mars Needs Moms – review, The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/apr/07/mars-needs-moms-film-review)
17. [Mars Needs Moms – review, The Guardian/Observer (Philip French)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/apr/10/mars-needs-moms-review)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Animated film studios and franchise animation › Disney and Pixar animated films*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license