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Written by McClatchy-Tribune
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Wednesday, 16 August 2006 |
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Critics are fuming that they won’t get an advance peek before the movie slithers into theaters Thursday at midnight.
Exhibitors, the folks who run the theaters, are annoyed that they had to book the thing sight unseen.
The only people who aren’t complaining, it seems, are the bloggers and cyber-fans. They’re getting the “Snakes on a Plane” they’ve been chatting about online since last summer, when the high-concept thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson and a 747 crawling with poisonous reptiles was announced.
This ready-made focus group created a buzz — or an irritated Sssssss! — that could translate into killer box office and revolutionize the way films are packaged and sold.
“Internet sites started tracking us as soon as ‘Snakes’ was announced,” recalled David R. Ellis, the film’s director. “And we were smart enough to listen to them. That’s better than hearing after the fact, ‘Oh, we liked ‘Snakes on a Plane,’ but it would have been really cool if they had done this.
“We weren’t doing a political film or a film that had to be true to a book,” the director added, “so we had no problem giving the fans exactly what they wanted.”
And what they wanted was more profanity, more snake violence, a tougher rating (R, not PG-13) and — when word leaked that it was now being called “Pacific Air 121” — the cruder, straight-for-the-jugular title, which has already passed into the vernacular as shorthand for “Hey, s--- happens!”
“The fans told us they wanted to be scared and jump out of their seats, and laugh,” said Ellis, now casting a teen horror flick called “Asylum.” “They said they wanted to see Sam Jackson kick ass on the snakes. We gave them that.”
To say that “SOAP,” as New Line Cinema calls it, is the most Internet-driven movie since “Blair Witch Project” is like saying Brad and Angelina enjoy a healthy following. Worldwide, there are literally thousands of “Snakes” links and sites, including New Lines’ official snakesonaplane.com and law student Brian Finkelstein’s popular snakesonablog.com. Available online are “Snakes” posters, T-shirts and, at www.youtube.com, gag trailers and auditions for the film. Tagworld.com/snakesonaplane has links to the more than 400 “Snakes” songs, many submitted for New Line’s soundtrack contest.
Little wonder box-office pundits are predicting a huge opening for the film, which cost a relatively reasonable $34 million. Ordinarily, a studio spends an amount equal to a movie’s production cost for marketing and advertising. New Line, according to Ellis, has earmarked only $10 million on its promotional blitz.”
Such an approach wouldn’t work on more personal films by, say, Robert Altman and Woody Allen, said Dergarabedian, but “Snakes” is tailor-made for bloggers and Net surfers. “This is definitely not for a movie like ‘Capote,’” the analyst said. “But ‘Snakes’ lends itself to this kind Internet tie-in. After the months-long build up, every teenager who can get into it is going to see it.”
The thriller, starring Jackson as a federal agent escorting a witness on a storm-tossed red-eye from Honolulu to Los Angeles, was shot in Vancouver last summer. | Only registered users can write comments.
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