From space it came to end the world with laughter.

In movies, meteors are forever bringing troubles: The Monolith Monsters arrived that way, and The Day of the Triffids began when blinding meteors brought seeds to earth. There are countless other examples, and now a new one delivers the worst trouble of all. In Ivan Reitman's big scale Evolution, one of those pesky meteors crashes in a cave in Arizona, setting free extremely adaptable life forms. Microscopic creatures begin evolving--note the title--right on up the evolutionary scale to the point of blue ape-like creatures. The proliferation of these alien critters eventually threatens all life on earth.

And this is a comedy.

The original script by Don (Arachnophobia) Jakoby was deadly serious, but when it landed on Reitman's desk, he began to see the comic possibilities in the story. "My company bought an original draft of the script that was being sent around." Reitman explains on the set of Evolution. "I thought it had this wonderful premise in it, a very goo sort of threat-to-earth science fiction plot. But for myself as a director, I thought that it would be more interesting treated as a comedy, while taking all the science/threat part seriously. Don liked that idea a lot, worked on it with me, worked with some other writers [David Duchovny and David Weissman] and we came up with this."

It's hardly surprising that Reitman would want to bend the script toward comedy, since he has been responsible as director (and sometimes producer) for some of the biggest-grossing comedies of all time. He directed Twins, as well as Meatballs, Stripes, Kindergarten Cop and Dave (probably his best movie so far). And, of course, the precedent-shattering Ghostbusters and its sequel.

Despite movie trade papers terming Evolution "The Ghostbusters of the New Millennium," Reitman is reluctant to make that claim. "I like a combination of genre movies; I've had great success with the science fiction films I've made. And I like making comedies; this is a combination of both. The tone is a little different from Ghostbusters, and it probably has a bigger scale than Ghostbusters in terms of what goes on. It's a different film, and the science is quite different."

Reitman is a friendly, very sharp guy. He's dressed mostly in black, and is very relaxed and forthcoming as he talks to a gaggle of journalists on a truly amazing set, designed by The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai's J. Michael Riva. After location shooting in Arizona and some colleges in Southern California, Evolution relocated to a vast building in Downey, just outside Los Angeles. This was once an aircraft assembly plant, but now mostly houses movies that need very large sets. Just after Evolution left, for example, Spider-Man moved in.

Of Discovery

On a bright, sunshiny day, with snow spread across the tops of the distant mountains like whipped cream on sundaes, David Duchovny saunters into the huge building, wearing a red-orange jumpsuit and a wry grin. He's followed by Orlando Jones, similarly clad and full of good-natured jokes. Julianne Moore, the third lead, is not on the set today. Nor is Dan Aykrod, who's doing a cameo for his old friend Reitman.

Inside the building there is a huge blue-screen wall with a very curious and extremely large prop hanging in front of it: It resembles a hundred square feet of skin, with what looks rather like an enormous rectum near one edge. Just what this represents, the DreamWorks publicist begs, should be left as a surprise for audiences. But here's a clue: ordinarily, this kind of animal is very, very, very small; in Evolution, it's three miles across. As Duchovny points out, you would think that level of menace the alien creatures represent would increase as they became more complicated, "but actually one of the twists in the story is that as the evolution becomes more defined, it doesn't have anything to do with the menace."

The reason a structure this large was needed is revealed: there's a colossal inflated building inside the building, a dome held up by constant air pressure. You enter it through a long airlock, with the dome at one end and a giant transparency, representing the Arizona desert at night, at the other.

Jones plays Harry Block, the women's volleyball coach at Glen Community College in Arizona, who also teaches some geology on the side. Duchovny is Ira Kane, Harry's best friend and science teacher at the same college. Neither man is exactly a roaring success professionally or with women, so when they find the meteor and its strange cargo, they think it will be the making of them.

After the government gets wind of their discovery, military scientists arrive en masse, including Center for Disease Control researcher Allison Reed (Moore). Although Ira is attracted to Allison at once, she finds him provincial and crude. Brushed aside by the government, Ira begins to understand that the rapidly evolving alien life forms represent a genuine world threat, so he and Harry along with their would-be fireman pal Wayne Green (Seann William Scott) try to save the planet. Even Allison eventually realizes the government is going about things all wrong, and begins helping the trio of would-be planet-savers.

The white inflated dome covers the spot where the meteor crashed through the ceiling of the cave below; tawny-orange Arizona gravel has been trucked in and spread across the floor to match the location. It is a lot easier than dyeing that much dirt. Around the dome are containment rooms, which have smaller containment rooms inside, while those have even smaller containment chambers, the kind you reach into with attached gloves. Here and there are small, dead alien creatures of many varieties and types, made of rubber and/or plastic. Some look like small, segmented worms, others mirror deep-sea creatures, still others resemble centipedes; there's a small pile of thingies that suggest a convention of sponges.

Catwalks run here and there around the room, with extras in military garb from privates through officers. Ira and Harry have sneaked into the place, dressed in those red-orange containment suits, and in the scene being filmed, enter the elevator that leads to the cave below.

In Theory

Born in Czechoslovakia but raised in Canada, Reitman became interested in movies early on, along with his boyhood chums David Cronenberg and Loren Michaels (of Saturday Night Live). (Transcriber's comment: "Hey, Ivan! How 'bout talking your old pal Lorne into having DD host the season finale again this year?") He began directing even before Cronenberg, with Foxy Lady in 1971 and Cannibal Girls in 1973. Reitman produced two of Cronenberg's earliest films, Shivers (a.k.a. They Came from Within) and Rabid, then came to California, where he produced National Lampoon's Animal House. After six years, he returned to directing with Meatballs, and even since has been busy in both capacities.

One of the biggest challenges on Evolution is, of course, the special effects. "In this film," Reitman explains, "we weren't dealing only with one creature, we had to deal with a whole range of evolution, and evolutionary scale cycle that starts at single-celled creatures and all the way through sentients, primate-like creature--and beyond.

"We've got a little rubber," he laughs, "but I would say it's 85 percent CGI right now. I think the audience's acceptance of what you can get away with is becoming more and more narrow; it's harder and harder to get away with rubber effects. If you want to create a lot of apes the way Tim Burton is doing, that's going to work fine, but in terms of creating something new, it's very tough."

So Reitman and his team turned to the reliable Phil (Starship Troopers) Tippett. "I worked with Phil for about four months before principal photography began," Reitman explains, "We started turning over early sequences two weeks into the shoot.

"Phil is a very wonderful, creative director, particularly when it comes to creatures. He has a real sense of how they should move, giving them weight and personality. The big difference on this, beyond 'Oh, it's a weird monster,' is that it's a comedy. I thought characterizing some of these creatures is where the real fun would come in. They're really dangerous, but they do contribute to the comedic element in the movie."

When Reitman produced the big dog movie Beethoven, he took note of Duchovny, who was very funny in a supporting role; more recently, when he produced Road Trip, he liked Scott, and cast them both in Evolution.

"David was very, very funny. I always thought he was a really good-looking, extra-ordinarily smart guy, and it's strange that what he has become world-famous for is The X-Files. He's fabulous in it, but he's actually not that dour character--he's much more humorous in real life.

"I always had in the back of my mind," the director continues, "to use him in something like this as a leading man who can do comedy. There are very few good-looking guys who can also do fun. He was actually my first choice for this, and he's doing great. He contributed a lot of the humor of the film just with his own mind. In terms of performance, he's a little different that you've ever seen him."

For Growth

Duchovny himself strolls up to the group of journalists, still dressed in his red-orange suit. Today, he's something of a slow start as an interview subject, initially answering in very brief sentences. When asked why he's doing a comedy, for example, he responds, "Because I felt like it." He seems to be challenging the group to pry answers out of him, but gradually warms up.

It has been pointed out that his character in Evolution is a bit like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, and Duchovny doesn't bother to deny this. Ira Kane, he allows, "is kind of like the antihero you've seen in many of Ivan's films, you know--a lovable loser, a guy who has screwed up his life and gets a chance to kind of redeem himself through extraordinary circumstances. Orlando is more the smartass in the movie," he says, "I'm not really the straight guy, but sometimes with Orlando and Seann, somebody has to be the straight guy."

Duchovny is accustomed to working with special effects, even with playing off monsters, and other stuff that aren't really there. "On X-Files, you're usually working with stuff that isn't there, the big stuff. But even when you have some kind of creature off camera, the creature's usually lying in his trailer getting made up. One thing Ivan did that was nice was to show us renderings of the particular creatures we're going to encounter."

He's quick to admit that if Evolution had been done straight, he probably wouldn't have done it. It would, Duchovny says, "have been too much like X-Files; to me, this couldn't be further from X-Files. It has a superficial resemblance in that it has some alien involvement, but other than that, it couldn't be more different."

Like many actors, Duchovny claims that doing comedy is harder that straight drama or melodrama. "It really very difficult. I enjoy having done comedies, and to have done them successfully, but there are probably more laughs on a more serious set. If you're getting laughs from the crew on a comedy, it's usually a pretty bad sign.

"With a drama, or science fiction, or any other kind of genre, many different people can enjoy the show and have different reactions, but with a comedy, it doesn't work unless people laugh. It's a very strict kind of criteria that a comedy is judged by, and I think that's the most difficult thing. The most scary thing as we're doing this is, you know, it could be great, it could be realistic, it could be a smart idea, but if people don't laugh, then ultimately it's unsuccessful. So that's what's on my mind whole I'm playing this part."

To Development

In contrast to Duchovny, Mad TV's Jones--very busy these days, what with movies, 7-Up commercials and all--is a self-starter, already talking as he approaches the group. "This is where the meteor actually hits," he says, pointing to the circular area in the middle of the dome, now covered with a metal-and-plastic lid. "When we first come upon it, it's just a hole in the ground, and at this point the military has gotten involved. Of course, they'd done what the military does: spend all of our money in order to contain the situation for, of course, research purposes. They've pushed us off the project, so we're sneaking back in to see what's happening. We're wearing containment suits because the aliens are not yet breathing oxygen. And this is the movie's beginning."

Jones is lively, funny and outgoing, grinning a lot and even doing high-fives with a reporter who asks a particularly interesting question. This isn't his first genre piece, having appeared in From Dusk Till Dawn 3 and the 2000 remake of Bedazzled. He was a standout in Liberty Heights and began to scale the heights of stardom with The Replacements.

"I'm the regular everyday guy for the most part, coaching this girls' team. And I'm a member of the United States Geological Survey. I signed up over the Internet, which you can do too," Jones explains. "I was sent out to this site because I'm the only one who's geologically related in the area. David's the scientist and I'm just trying to pad out my résumé, so I invite him along in case I have to do something scientific. I just want to rush through it though, because I have a big volleyball game that night against Arizona State. When we get there we discover it is alien life. We try to take credit for the discovery because we know it's big, and it all gets out of control from there."

Jones is happy to be working with Reitman, whom he declares a genius and a great deal of fun. And also with Duchovny. "I saw him on Larry Sanders and Saturday Night Live and thought he was really funny. 'Wow,' I thought, 'I'm surprised this guy has never done a comedy.' I've always been a fan of Julianne; Seann is very funny as well, and obviously Ivan was a big draw. But the script, I think, is really, really funny." Too many scripts he's sent, he feels, exploit him being black, "but it sometimes seems what you're asked to do. But I read this, and I thought, 'Wow, this is a really funny script.' I've never done a big special FX movie, and I decided that if I'm going to do one, I should do it with someone as great as Ivan Reitman. So here I am."

The aliens, he says with a straight face, are "very vulnerable to 7-Up. They are apparently addicted to the great taste of 7-Up. And many of the aliens ask me if they can make 7-Up theirs, and of course I say, 'Up yours.'"

Despite their alleged Uncola preferences, the aliens do present a menace, but Jones asserts that "I'm well-equipped. I have David, Julianne and Seann with me, and we save the world. I deliver the crowning blow, but we do it together. You should be thanking me right now. I can't believe you're not on bended knee, saying thank you for protecting our way of life! I can tell you, it's not the military who saves you. It's us!"

On Motivation

Outside in the bright winter sunshine, Scott is ambushed by journalists, surprised but happy to do an interview. His character, Wanye Gray, he says, "wants to be a fireman, but he's not the most coordinated person in the world, and he's probably not too intelligent, but he has a big heart. He keeps failing the test to be a fireman, so he has to work a crappy job at this country club. The guy who always gives him crap gets eaten by an alien, which I take to Duchovny and Orlando; from that point I get to battle aliens and save the world with them," he laughs. "I have a purpose."

Scott made a big impression as Stifler in the hit comedy American Pie; his role in Final Destination was smaller, but the hits Road Trip and Dude, Where's My Car? shoved him up the ladder very quickly. Mostly, he plays dimwitted goons, and admits that Wayne isn't much more intelligent than his usual characters. "I think he's more identifiable." Scott suggests. "That's what I was going for--this is my chance to really dive deep down and come up with a character."

He loves the fact that Evolution is both science fiction and a comedy. "The few things I've done have been pretty simple comedy; you can act opposite another person, and that's pretty much it. Whereas a lot of time here, we're reacting to things that aren't really there; a big tennis ball on a stick is our eyeline, so if one guy is [he does a big "shock" take] and another guy is [he does a small "shock" take], we're all going to look like idiots. But it's neat because of the editing system that they have--you can see them incorporate the aliens right after we film it."

Scott seems like one of those guys who's pretty happy most of the time, so it's hardly surprising he expresses delight at working with Duchovny and Jones. "We all have such different personalities and different kinds of humor. If you see a picture of us together, you start laughing because we're such an odd trio. I've followed David since Kalifornia, and The X-Files is my favorite show--he's one of my favorite actors. He's just such a great guy. For me, it's neat that he's doing things that nobody has ever seen him do before--being funny and just being a badass. It's really neat to be a part of that. And Orlando, we're seeing him on the rise--he's going to be the biggest of the biggest. We've got Julianne Moore too--it's pretty amazing. It's an environment where I could easily been intimidated, but they have made it real comfortable and fun. It just seems like a big movie. Evolution feels like a movie that people are going to be talking about for a long time."

Have a nice end of the world.