Snakes On A Plane

  On August 18, the film world will be turned on its ear.  It is a rare event in the world of Hollywood cinema when a movie bereft of Oscar attention and that isn’t part of an ongoing and established series (e.g. Star Wars, Star Trek) can generate the pre-release buzz that has been garnered by “Snakes On A Plane.” The media hype surrounding the film’s release has been tremendous—so much so, in fact, that it has actually affected the end product.

  The “Snakes On A Plane” phenomenon is not easy to understand.  Those who do understand it are cut from a different cloth than you and I.  They are the ones who camp outside movie theaters for days before a release.  They are the ones who enjoy poorly dubbed Japanese horror movies.  They are the…Well, it’s no coincidence that the first official teaser for the movie debuted before “X-Men 3: The Last Stand.”  ‘Nuff said.

  The film’s title is it’s key selling-point.  Expository, explanatory and concise, it lays out, in unminced words, the film’s sure-to-be-cheesy premise.  Samuel L. Jackson, the movie’s star, claims that the only reason he took the role was because the movie was called “Snakes On A Plane.” Yet at one point, mid-production, the title was changed to “Pacific Air Flight 121,” a move that shocked and appalled the film’s early, die-hard following.  In an interview early this year, Jackson claimed that when he found out about the change, he told his producers, “What are you doing here? It’s not ‘Gone With The Wind.’  It’s not ‘On The Waterfront.’  It’s ‘Snakes On A Plane!’”

  There are other things that make the film’s fan fury unique.  Early this year, after anticipation had built to unforeseen levels, New Line Cinema ordered five more days of production.  In the world of movies, this usually indicates a problem with the film, and this was no different.  New Line feared that the movie—which was never intended to be a BIG movie—wasn’t good enough to meet the growing expectations of “Snakesonapaniacs.”  Among the changes that were made was the insertion of Jackson’s already famous F-bomb-laden line “That’s it!  I have had it with these [expletive] snakes on this [expletive] plane!”  That particular line was taken from a fan-produced parody.  That particular line, along with some more violent material added during those five days, kicked it up from the probable PG-13 rating it would have received into the R-rated territory that its core following had come to expect.  One can easily see how the expectations have not only bolstered the film to a level it was never expected to reach, but molded it into a film that it was not intended to be.  And that is rare.

  Will the media frenzy generated by “Snakes On A Plane” be enough to push an over-the-top movie over the top?  Probably.  Will other studios try to capitalize on its success by making other similarly corny movies?  I would imagine so.  But will they be as successful as “Snakes On A Plane” will be?  Not likely.  This is, as Churchill once said, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

-From Pulse
   August 3, 2006