Since the dawn of time, man has been afraid of two things: flying and snakes. Snakes on a Plane aims to plumb the depths of both phobias, and become box office poison more venomous than the Copperheads on board. Actually, this movie is shaping up to be so bad, that it’ll be phenomenal.
Snakes on a Plane was a working title, that got changed to Pacific Air Flight 121. But in an interview with star Samuel L. Jackson, he said they were changing it back. And rightly so. Pacific Air Flight 121 is lame, and will interest no one. Snakes on a Plane will still suck as a film, but it’s not trying to pass itself off as anything it’s not. There are snakes, and they will be on a plane.
Also hats off to Jackson for saying the only reason he did the film was because of the title! He has a sense of humor, and he knows he’s getting paid.
What’s really cool is that the studio responsible for this potential bomb, is that they are embracing the cult following that sprang up around the title. Very serendipitous for them indeed, but it’s refreshing to see a movie studio taking feedback for a movie. It’s not like a focus group where they’re trying to get all the right ingredients for a blockbuster, and then failing to mix them properly. They’re almost collaborating with the community to make a film everyone is actually excited about.
If SOAP is a hit, you can believe other studios will try to achieve its success by mimicking this strategy. But I think the only reason SOAP is striking a chord with so many people is because it was an organic process. The studio acknowledged it was making a piece of crap and accepted the community response. They could just as easily have slapped cease and desist orders on people leaking scripts and such. A wink and a nudge attitude, and admitting the fact that this is a stupid idea for a movie, gets people behind it.
I could see them doing this for the new Rocky movie, because that’s an even bigger joke than snakes on a plane, but Sly would never be cool about that, like Samuel L. Jackson is.
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