Snakes on a Plane in a Month

Posted on July 12, 2006

In just a little over a month Snakes on a Plane (SoaP) will finally debut in theatres. The film opens on August 18th. The blogosphere has been buzzing about the movie for several months now. AskMen.com has a good overview of the story behind Snakes on a Plane in case you seriously haven't heard of it before. The film's star Samuel Jackson insisted New Line Cinema keep the film's title.

Most films start production with a working title that is eventually changed after the marketing department spends millions of dollars and countless hours conceiving and testing new, usually lamer names. Such was the case with SoaP (as it is known in cheesy Net-shorthand): Snakes on a Plane was originally just one of the temporary titles, and the studio decided to change it to the presumably more marketable Pacific Air Flight 121 after Samuel L. Jackson signed on.

That is, until the actor freaked out and threatened to pull out of the project if the name wasn't changed back. And when Mr. Jackson asks for something, he usually gets it. "That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title," he is quoted as saying in respect to the unusual name. So, the name came back and a modern-day pop-culture folktale was born.

Usually, studios wait until they see some numbers before greenlighting a sequel, but the Net is already a-slither with sequel rumors. SoaP is an unexpected phenomenon, and New Line is eager to capitalize. Early "reports" suggest Snakes on a Train or Spiders on a Boat. Sounds more like Bombs at the Box Office to us.

The article also explains how a mock trailer created by a fan was responsible for some of the dialogue added to the film. It will be interesting to see how a movie performs after so much Internet publicity. It is probably the first movie to become a cult classic before being released. Defamer and I Watch Stuff have found a poster from the French version of the movie, Des Serpents Dans L'Avion. More information about Snakes on a Plane can be found on IMDB.com and Wikipedia.


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