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The band has detailed its unconventional plans for Christmas on Mars on its release through Warner distribution; the movie will be screened at special concerts by The Flaming Lips, creating a unique sensory experience with the movie acting as a backdrop to the live music.

Originally, 'Christmas on Mars' was not to be released at conventional movie theaters. Instead, a DVD release would be preceded by a number of screenings at rock venues. Speaking to mtv.com, Coyne has explained, "We want to show the movie with a mega-sound system and snow machines and just make it like a bigger event than what has become the typical movie-going experience. I'm hoping that people can watch this movie while they drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and have a good time." It is expected that the DVD will be released by Warner Bros, and that it will include a number of bonus features. These will include out-takes, a score-only audio track, probably all of the band's promotional videos for Warner Bros, and possibly (director of photography) Bradley Beesley's documentary short, 'The Flaming Lips Have Landed'.

Coyne had mentioned plans to take the film on a tour of some sort. "I want the Flaming Lips audience to shape this. It'll be like our live show, which evolves as it goes. We'll show it to the audience and let them talk out there on message boards, and then maybe we'll take that and go back and change it and put it out there again and see what they think. It'll be a different experience than sitting at home and watching a DVD, for sure. I don't know if a lot of bands can do that, but the Flaming Lips sure can."

By October 2007, the film was in the final editing stage and the band was also transferring it to HD and adding "in-depth special effects." In September 2008, the film premiered in New York City at 7am within the KGB Complex, a former Ukrainian Socialist Social Club, on the Lower East Side.[4].

Thus far, screenings at the KGB and elsewhere have not followed Coyne's announced "live show model" - the closest to those have been the screenings at rock festivals during the summer of 2008. Those additional screenings, organized by company Cinema Purgatorio, were intended to complement Coyne's other plans: Cinema Purgatorio shows would not be Coyne's delirious, deluxe screenings, they would be somewhat more conventional screenings in somewhat more conventional theatrical contexts. Nonetheless, many Flaming Lips fans expect the film will play in different contexts, including many run by Coyne himself, into the extended future.

The film will be released on DVD November 11th, 2008 and will include a soundtrack CD.[5]