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MOVIES -- Punch up the gore, among other things |
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Written by asap
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Saturday, 15 July 2006 |
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LOS ANGELES — Let’s get this cleared up right away: Sam Jackson is onboard. So yes, the plane lands safely by the end.
Making like a giant python, asap squeezed director David Ellis and screenwriter John Heffernan for all the new details we could get about the the Internet meme-slash-B movie that is “Snakes on a Plane.” (Warning: Some minor spoilers ahead.)
The movie is due out Aug. 18 and the first review went up Friday at Ain’t It Cool News. Footage is being shown publicly at next week’s Comic-Con in San Diego. Meanwhile, asap reveals:
-- The reasons behind initial director Ronny Yu’s departure. (He wanted an epic.)
-- Actors considered to play Jackson’s character before he signed on. (Think Tommy Lee Jones.)
-- When we get the snakes. (Just 15 minutes in.)
First, the ending: “They do land the plane,” Ellis told asap.
The lovable “SNL” cast member Kenan Thompson plays a big role in that conclusion, Ellis said: “He doesn’t die, but he has a huge role in the end of the movie. People love him in the movie and it’d be stupid to kill him. It’s a really cute twist on what happens to get them down.”
———
SNAKES POPULISM
We’re obsessed with “Snakes on a Plane” for its titular embrace of its own B-movieness, its out-and-out crowd-pleasingness, its “populism,” as Chuck Klosterman puts it, disparagingly, in the latest issue of Esquire. That’s all fine with the filmmakers.
Ellis, a former stuntman and action-focused second-unit director, has helmed only three other movies, all decidedly genre flicks: “Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco,” “Cellular” and “Final Destination 2.”
“When they’re my own movies, I’m not trying to make a statement or do it for myself. You have to look at the material, who the material is going to appeal to,” Ellis said. “I’m not making ’Snakes on a Plane’ to make a statement about what snakes on a plane means. I’m going out to make an entertaining movie about snakes on a plane with Sam Jackson. I’m going after the core audience that wants to see the film.”
That core audience, online, suggested the Jackson line, infamous before anyone’s even seen him say it.
There was already one F-word in the PG-13 version of “Snakes,” and adding another as the line required would inevitably mean an R rating. So in April, the filmmakers -- working mostly in Vancouver, Canada -- re-shot a few key scenes.
“They allowed me to go back five days, punch up the gore, the nudity,” Ellis said. “We added nipples” to a Mile High Club scene in the plane bathroom, he added. “Those kids like to see boobs, unfortunately. Or fortunately. Whatever. What man doesn’t?”
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF ’SNAKES’
Heffernan, one of three credited “Snakes” writers, said he came up with the idea in 1998 by combining two of the things that people most fear.
He was 24 and had already written his first script but was still working in a low-level position at a development company. He shopped it around and thus began what he calls its “serpentine” route to production. Executives at MTV Films and Paramount dug the idea, but the movie was eventually shelved and almost killed off entirely post-Sept. 11.
In late 2004 and early 2005, New Line stepped in and approved production. They had been in talks with Ronny Yu, a Hong Kong director who earned points in Hollywood for his successful “Freddy vs. Jason” (2003). The relationship quickly soured and Yu left.
“He wanted a much bigger budget. He wanted to do much bigger things,” Heffernan said. “This isn’t a $100 million movie. This isn’t ’X-Men.’ This is a genre film. Ronny always wanted to do something much larger.”
Ellis said he got a “frantic” call from New Line executives in April 2005 and joined in.
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NO SAM JACKSON?
Heffernan said he originally envisioned a younger FBI agent on the plane — “maybe Taye Diggs or Blair Underwood” -- and his older, veteran counterpart guiding him from the ground — “maybe like a Tommy Lee Jones or an Ed Harris.” Jackson joined the cast as the veteran but decided he should be the star, and Bobby Cannavale is now cast as the younger agent communicating with Jackson from the ground, Heffernan said.
Ellis promises a “big action sequence” with Jackson early on, and snakes that begin to appear a mere 15 minutes into the 1:39 running time. With so much of the film confined to the plane, he shifts through five lighting setups to give a sense of progression.
-- The plane takes off at night and all appears normal.
-- When the snakes get into the electrical systems, they cause shorts that lead to red emergency lighting.
-- Eventually all the lights go out and the passengers have only flashlights with which to see the snakes.
-- Electrical power is eventually restored.
-- The plane lands at dawn on the West Coast.
As for whether all those ... snakes actually got off the ... plane? Are they still slithering around by the time the credits roll?
Here’s what Ellis will say: “It could be open for a sequel, yeah. It could definitely be open for a sequel.”
———
asap staff reporter Ryan Pearson isn’t ashamed to say he’s written more about “Snakes on a Plane” than any other AP writer, ever.
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