A documentary made about the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, from launch to exploration of the surface of the Red Planet, ROVING MARS is directed by George Butler (SHACKLETON’S ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE) and produced by Marshall and Butler. The exclusive IMAX movie is a special Walt Disney Pictures production in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and will open nationwide on January 27, 2006.

"I like to do different things and I love documentaries," says Marshall about why got involved with the project. "I love the fact that you start with one thing, then follow the story and the movie kinds of makes itself as you go along."

In a recent interview with iF MAGAZINE, Marshall discusses his Mars adventures as well as his upcoming directing projects plus the future of the INDY, BOURNE and JURASSIC franchises.

FRANK MARSHALL: The missions to Mars haven’t been very successful up to this time so that became my job as Producer to go get the financing for the movie and put together the logistics – visiting NASA, JPL and shooting over this long period. Of course, we we’re supposed to be done over a year and a half ago. The story we concocted in our heads was the making and the birth of the rovers, the launch, they do their job and then they die and the movie is over. Well, they didn’t die… they kept going, and going and going.

It was beyond our wildest hopes that Spirit and Opportunity had made it and that’s the other thing that could have happened – they could have found nothing. That’s what’s been so great about the project, seeing it come together with such great success.

iF: How real is the computer animation you use to show what’s going on with the Rovers on Mars?

MARSHALL: We wanted to show what the Rovers were doing and you can’t just have stills and we want to make a big deal out of the ones we have. So Dan Maas, who is a computer animator, had done a lot of renderings for NASA and JPL of the mission. He did some extraordinary stuff that I’ve never seen before. They [the computer animation] are exact simulations of what happened. Example, when the airbags are bouncing those are exactly the height and number of bounces that happened on Mars because they got the data back from the Rovers. He took the data and he put it into his simulations. It’s all what’s happening up there even though it’s computer generated so we felt that that was going to be okay as long as that’s what happened. We haven’t exaggerated or embellished anything and they’re all based on images from the Hubbell [Telescope], Voyager or the Rovers or Pathfinders of what’s given us the real data. We’ve also done some visual effects. We’ve taken the real background and we put the Rover into it.

MARSHALL: Being there when they first landed. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

FRANK MARSHALL: Way back when Harrison [Ford] was being honored by the AFI [American Film Institute] was when this all started. We [Ford & Spielberg] were all standing backstage, we saw all the movies and everything and we were a little nostalgic and mellow and we said, "you know, that was fun. We ought to do that. Let’s try and do this." Well, that was a while ago. I think that what we want is we want it to be as good as the others. These are not stories based on anything, so it’s taking a while. But I’ll tell you, it’s on the front burner and we’re going to decide to do this or not real soon.

MARSHALL: Frank did a nice job, but we wanted to go in a different direction and that’s moviemaking. We’re going to have a script real soon and now it’s a question of getting our schedules all to where we can do it. There are four of us, so it’s hard.

iF: What’s going on with the third Bourne movie, BOURNE ULTIMATUM?

MARSHALL: BOURNE ULTIMATUM starts August 1 shooting in Europe. Paul Greengrass is the director. Matt Damon is in it. He loves the script. Tony Gilroy wrote the script and we’re off and running. Paul is doing a movie called FLIGHT 93 right now, so Pat Riley and I are going over to England next month to start pre-production.

iF: Any hint as to what’s in the BOURNE ULTIMATUM?

MARSHALL: [Tony Gilroy] made up an incredible story. It’s really, really out there. Joan Allen and Julia Stiles characters [are back] and then some fresh new characters. And a couple of baddies.

iF: Will Bourne ever be happy?

MARSHALL: I think he’s going to get there in this one. He’s going to get to a place of nirvana and a place of satisfaction and he’ll feel good about himself by the end of this movie. Sail off into the sunset, like Indy. Then I’ll have to go through this again in five years. "Hey, wasn’t that fun."

iF: What about JURASSIC PARK 4?

MARSHALL: It’s kind of off the radar. We’ve got BOURNE here [he indicates at the top of the table he’s sitting behind], we’ve got INDY here, [indicates a little further back] and we have JURASSIC back here [far back - almost at the edge of table]. Steven’s obviously been pretty busy the last year, so we haven’t focused on that yet. But we will.

iF: What about your directing plans to direct in the future?

MARSHALL: What I’m planning on directing is the LANCE ARMSTRONG STORY and another book called THE PERFECT MILE, which is the story of John Landy, Roger Bannister and Wes Santee trying to break the 4-minute mile. And then I have a script about Django Reinhardt who is the father of the modern jazz guitar – a French gypsy. I bought the story idea while making BOURNE IDENTITY in Paris. I met the publisher and got real excited [about it]. So there I am. It’s going to take us until 2010.