Snakes On A Mutherfuckin' Plane

[GoneSavage]

But then why does this have all the attention that Boa vs Python should have gotten?  Sam Jackson?

[Neil]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CSudn9n0d_k

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YLuMjMT7Vus&search=snakes%20plane%20trailer%20sam%20samuel%20jackson

God dammit...

[modage]

[McfLy]

Some poster designer is having too much fun.

[mogwai]

Some poster designer is having too much fun.

or too much access!!!

[MacGuffin]

Fan frenzy for 'Snakes' is on a different plane
Source: Hollywood Reporter

As film backstories go, this one is fairly serpentine. This month, New Line Cinema's "Snakes on a Plane," which wrapped principal photography in September in Vancouver, went back before the cameras for five days of additional shooting at the Lot in Los Angeles.

In this case, it wasn't the usual reshoot, hastily assembled to fix a nagging story problem. Instead, the studio decided to create new scenes that would take the movie from PG-13 into R-rated territory.

The second round of filming also came about because of intense and growing fan interest in the movie, which was directed by David R. Ellis and is not scheduled to be released until Aug. 18.

"Snakes" stars Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI agent who has to fight a planeload of snakes unleashed by an assassin bent on killing a witness in protective custody. Sight unseen, the movie has grown from something of a joke into a phenomenon slithering untamed throughout the Internet.

As a movie whose fan base has grown spontaneously and organically, "Snakes" is relatively rare.

Intense fan reaction to movies most often is associated with titles that have established themselves in other media, such as comic book movies or fantasy novels, before making their way to the screen. Or it becomes attached to surprise hits, like the original "Star Wars," that develop massive cult followings once they are released.

But original movies that develop a big prerelease following are uncommon. Artisan Entertainment pulled off that trick in 1999 with its viral Internet campaign for "The Blair Witch Project," but that success has not been easily duplicated.

"Snakes," based an original script by John Heffernan (with rewrites by David Louca, Sheldon Turner, Sebastian Gutierrez and Chris Morgan) barely has an official Web site at the moment. But the movie, produced by Craig Berenson, Don Granger and Gary Levinsohn, already is the talk of a certain segment of the Net without any real prodding on the part of New Line.

It all started with the provocative and buzzworthy, if also reductive, title. New Line picked up the script in turnaround from Paramount Pictures in March 2003 -- in the wake of Sept. 11, terror-on-a-plane movies had fallen out of favor. And even within New Line, there were skeptics who viewed "Snakes on a Plane" as nothing but a simple programr with a "stupid title."

After Jackson came on board as the star, the title was upgraded to the more generic "Pacific Air Flight 121." The studio said it was a temporary moniker being used for "casting purposes." Executives were searching for something that was more thriller-like and less campy. According to sources, Jackson's camp also was in favor of a title change.

"Who wants to be in a movie called 'Snakes on a Plane'?" asked one talent agent at the time, seeming to echo the studio's concerns.

But once production began, a funny thing happened. Movie fans began noticing the black sheep of the New Line slate. They seized upon the title and started spontaneously creating fan sites, blogs, T-shirts, poems, fiction and songs. The title itself, sometimes abbreviated as "SoaP," has emerged as Internet-speak for fatalistic sentiments that range from c'est la vie to "shit happens."

"The title is so clear and so straightforward," said Brian Finkelstein, a Washington, D.C., native who created the blog Snakesonablog.com and who hopes to score tickets to the movie's premiere. "You know exactly what you're going to get."

Like Harry Potter, whose first suggestion that he's got magic on his hands comes when he discovers he can talk to snakes in their language , New Line got the message. Deciding that so many anonymous fans couldn't be wrong, the studio decided to revert to the movie's original title.

Jackson publicly endorsed the move. "That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title," Jackson told entertainment site Collider.com. He added, "You either want to see that, or you don't."

New Line execs, concerned that it is too early to discuss the movie, declined comment. But sources now insist the studio never abandoned the "Snakes" title in the first place and that "Pacific Air" was just an internal working title.

In any event, "Snakes"-ophiles already were hard at work. Chris Rohan of Bethesda, Md., created an elaborate, R-rated audio trailer that lovingly mocks the title and movie. "It's a genius title," Rohan said. "It's so stupid it's great. It invites satire, but it's something you just love. It's something I can't explain. You either get it or you don't."

The audio bit uses a Jackson sound-alike shouting, "I want these motherfucking snakes off the motherfucking plane!" Soon, the growing legion of fans added their voices as they demanded that that phrase also appear in the movie.

Apparently, the studio got the hint. When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded.

Those involved with the film said the reshoots weren't prompted by fans but rather by the existing footage that already was a hairline into R territory. Within the studio, the thinking was, "We're already going to get an R, why not go all the way?" But the filmmakers do concede that the Jackson line will be in the movie for the sake of the fans.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon keeps growing.

David Coin, a Maryland-based friend of Rohan, pitched in by creating a "Snakes" song and is working on a second.

New Line, in turn, is reaching out to the fans. In response to populist "Snakes" songs already created, the studio has just teamed up with social-networking site TagWorld.com to launch a contest that will allow one lucky winner's song to be featured in the movie.

[Neil]

My friend and i were discussing the brilliance of this...I mean I'm not sure what the exact status on this film is, but their are t-shirts, and and all that...I got an Entertainment Weekly and it was talking about it in the magazine...I mean honestly, i kind of wish i thought of this...Wait, i just remembered that is a lie...The point is that, i can't believe this is a real thing, and I'll probably go see it...(Hanging Head Smiley)

[ono]

I've given this some thought over the past day or so.  Like modage said, this is instant camp.  I think it's brilliant in a stupid way, so I can't really deny the appeal.  It's been put quite succinctly in that article, you either love it or you don't, but you know what you're gonna get.

So yes, hilarious camp in less time than something like Showgirls took to morph into the same.  And this, coming from a guy who hates movies like these normally because they try so hard to be respectable.  With this flick though, a couple of lucky things happened.  Sam Jackson came on and simultaneously gave it an upgrade in quality and removed all respectability, changing this flick from horrible Hollywood claptrap to something that will probably be so bad it's good.  Such an interesting dichotomy, which is exactly what would make this work.  I may actually see this and laugh my ass off the whole way through.  If not, back to the arthouse.

[MacGuffin]

Snakes Update: Yes, They're Real

Awhile back, some of the cast from Snakes on a Plane had returned to the set for re-shoots in order to "up the ante" and transform the film from just some regular old PG-13 flick about a bunch of cute little snakes on a plane to an explosive, kick-ass, balls-to-the-wall good time.

Well, Bloody Disgusting recently interviewed David R. Ellis and the Snakes director shed some much-needed light on those controversial "additional scenes," as well as silenced the Internet haters who claim all the snakes in the film are fake. According to Ellis, there were "over 500 real, non-venomous snakes as well as some CGI snakes" on set and, hopefully, in the film too.

And about those additional scenes: Ellis claims that the reason for the R rating is that the deaths are more violent and graphic. Oh, and there's nudity. Where would there be nudity you ask? Well, how about in a scene where a man and a woman find themselves wanting to join the mile-high club.

[Pubrick]

Where would there be nudity you ask? Well, how about in a scene where a man and a woman find themselves wanting to join the mile-high club.

..but they encounter a little problem with an unruly trouser snake!

[GoneSavage]

Where would there be nudity you ask? Well, how about in a scene where a man and a woman find themselves wanting to join the mile-high club.

..but they encounter a little problem with an unruly trouser snake!

Hiss

[ono]

Where would there be nudity you ask? Well, how about in a scene where a man and a woman find themselves wanting to join the mile-high club.

..but they encounter a little problem with an unruly trouser snake!

Hiss

L'hiss.  (Here's hoping someone just happened to have a pet mongoose in the cargo hold.)

[MacGuffin]

Best marketing ploy ever!

Pilot Fights Black Snake Stowaway on Plane

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Monty Coles was 3,000 feet in the air when he discovered a stowaway peeking out at him from the plane's instrument panel — a 4 1/2-foot black snake.

Coles had left Charleston earlier for a leisurely flight over the West Virginia countryside last Saturday in his Piper Cherokee and was preparing to land in Gallipolis, Ohio, when the snake revealed itself.

"Nothing in any of the manuals ever described anything like this," the 62-year-old Cross Lanes resident said. But the advice given 25 years earlier from his flight instructor immediately came to mind: "No matter what happens, fly the plane."

An attempt to swat the snake only resulted in it falling to Coles' feet under the rudder pedals. It then darted to the other side of the cockpit.

While maintaining control of the single-engine plane with one hand, Coles grabbed the reptile behind its head with his other.

"There was no way I was letting that thing go. It coiled all around my arm, and its tail grabbed hold of a lever on the floor and started pulling," Coles said.

The next step was to radio for emergency landing clearance.

"They came back and asked what my problem was. I told them I had one hand full of snake and the other hand full of plane. They cleared me in."

After a smooth landing, Coles posed for pictures with the snake, then let it loose.

"That snake resides in Ohio now," he said. "I wasn't about to bring it home. I don't mind snakes, but I sure like to know where they are."

Coles said he was lucky his usual travel companions, his wife and dachshund, were not on the flight.

"If my wife had been in the plane, I wouldn't have a wife, a plane or myself," Coles said. "I don't know what might have happened if Killer had been in the plane, but it sure would have been a lot more exciting."

[MacGuffin]

Teaser Trailer

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.