Slashdot Mirror
Snakes on The Net Fail to Put Butts in the Seats
Lev13than writes "An article in The Globe & Mail discusses the disappointing performance of Snakes on a Plane. Despite extensive Internet hype and unprecedented audience involvement in the movie's development, it barely slithered into first place with a meager $13.8M weekend box office. 'The Internet stuff was just fun that people were having with it, but I don't think that necessarily meant that those people wanted to see the movie... those who had made that decision based their decision more on the traditional marketing than on all this Internet buzz.' Was all of the hype about blogger power just that — hype?"
There is one major possibility that everybody is forgetting.
That is, that this movie could have quite possibly ended dead last without the Internet hype. I think the only reason they made anything at all was because of the hype.
Years ago there was the viral marketing about The Blair Witch Project. I wondered what all the buzz was about and saw it. To me it was money down the drain. I didn't care for it and became a bit cynical about film pushed this way. Now if someone I knew who had similar tastes and saw a film and liked it, which I used to do, I'd give it a try.
Years ago I used to read the Detroit Free Press, which had a little grid in the back, which summarised what various critics thought of films. I learned which leaned most often my way and followed their advice. Most often we were in sync. Now I just chance it, mostly on trailers, of indie fliks. Hollywood stuff you usually get all the good bits and the whole plot in trailers.
Upon Scott Kurtz' endorsement I saw Little Miss Sunshine, which is quite the little gem.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There are motherF***in' snakes on the motherf***in' Plane!
It's that simple. SNAKES! On a PLANE!
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Half of the Slashdot crowd will just download the flick and wonder why the producers are so disappointed in the film's performance at the box office.
Then they will post about the virtues of free software... knowing full well that they really mean beer.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
It only came first. What a disappointment. I'd much rather it had come zeroth, that would have been a much better indication of success.
It's just fun to make fun of a big production B movie :)
What, they thought we were serious? *blink*
all of those bloggers making SoaP jokes? They were laughing at, not with the marketroids and hollywood in general. It was derision, nothing else.
I know that I don't generally shell out cash for things I'm derisive of, that's for sure.
Maybe the snakes scared the movie-goers away.
Remember kids, with great power comes great opportunity to abuse that power
I noticed a difference between the average internet crowd and the type of people I witnessed in line for a movie like Saw II, which grossed $31,725,652 its opening weekend. All the bloggers were too busy blogging.
It was the highest grossing movie this weekend, right? First place? What were they hoping for? Zeroth place? I mean really. The 'buzz' was that it was basically a stupid movie with no plot. And it still made it to the top. And they complain? Man, talk about a sore winner.
Barely made first place, huh?
Cause obviously first place just isn't good enough.
In all honesty, with all the hype, it was pretty close to impossible to live up to it. I'm surprised it even made first over the weekend.
If you have a bad plot idea usally leads no real profit even when driven by a huge marketing department.
This movie debut - 10 years ago = Complete and utter bust. The money it made was due to the Internet and very little else. If anything it was a wakeup call to Hollywood in how much money can be made by "marketing" to the appropriate audience (although of course with SoaP it was mostly accidental ;)
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
SoaP made back 50% of its $30 million budget in one weekend! Whatever will the studios do? Oh that's right, make nice profit on continued viewings, DVDs, TV airings, etc.
with all the bombs lately, maybe they are waiting for word of mouth to see if it is ANY GOOD?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Yeah.. it was the *internet* that cause Snakes on a Plane to Fail..
I assure you that's the angle the producers who are in fear of losing their jobs are pitching right now.
While I'm interested in seeing the film, my wife and I just can't swallow the wretched ticket prices when, for cost of two admissions, we can OWN THE DVD. Not rent, own. And that's not even factoring in gas or babysitting costs.
Add to that the cost of consessions and the sheer rudeness of humanity (talking to your neighbor, talking on your cellphone, text messaging, kicking the back of my chair) I'm just not interested in going to see a film on the big screen.
So, am I going to shell out big bucks to watch commercials, listen to other people's conversations, and then sit through a B-grade flick? Hell no.
Don't just game, Dungeoneer
when you saw a dancing baby, did you want a baby?
when some turkish dude said "i kiss you!" did you want to kiss him?
did watching the hamster dance make you want to buy a hamster?
when cats said all our base are belong to him, did you want to play zerowing?
when star wars kid valiantly fought with canadian air, did you want to buy a light sabre?
did watching jibjab's "this land is our land" change your vote?
no, to all of that
so why would laughing at snakes on a plane make you want to go to the movies?
dumb internet fads are, guess what, nothing but dumb internet fads
they don't translate into anything, excep time wasted at work and school
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Everyone know about this movie. The problem is, just because everyone knows about it and it's hyped, does not mean it's going to be a good movie. It's the mixed reviews it got from people who saw it. If you ask your friend "what did you think of this most hyped movie", and they say "well it was funny but not really scary". It's not going to be an impression like "hey thats the best movie I've seen all year!".
Part of the problem is the echo chamber effect that blogs have. They tend to believe that everyone is like them, because everyone they deal with online is, well, like them. There are 200 million people in America that aren't bloggers. No matter how important bloggers think they are, there are still way more people who don't think blogs are even relevant.
That line, said by Samuel L. Jackson, is pretty much all that the movie has going for it.
And that's definitly not enough to carry a movie.
Of course, it was the Pirates
Damn P2P users plunder our movie profits!!
The internet is a buzz for months with people making jokes about how stupid this movie is going to be, and they are suprised its not the next Titanic?!
I given what people expected $13M isn't too bad. It did get first spot, if barely. It will probably still gross more than "A Prairie Home Companion".
I haven't seen it, but I have heard it is better than expected!
Think Deeply.
I should think they should be happy enough with what they got. SoaP as the number one movie? That's pretty damn good for what should have been a crappy B-movie going straight, as one poster put it, to the bargin bin at Wal-Mart.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
Bloggers cannot be trusted?! Unbelievable. This is the story of the century!
Blog via SMS text messaging
From marketing dude Seth Godin's Blog:
this whole blogosphere hype is exactly that, hype, for the fact that these hollywood types think that internet bloggers get there crusty cheap bums off the chair for a minute to go see a movie shows they have it all twisted, the avg geek knows they wiull wait to dl the movie via torrent or usenet cuz paying for entertainment is so 20th century.
There were these snakes, and then there was this plane, and Sam Jackson saved the day.
A far more intriguing plot than, oh say, Star Wars I.
Cool. What's it about?
Even though we all like to think we are some huge and massive force that keep entire industries afloat, we aren't. The myth of the "Harcore Gamer" is just as much bullshit as "Blogger/Internet Power." Regular Joe's make up the bulk of the U.S. not the average /. reader, just because we can cause a web server to slow down for an hour or get a new Super Mario game to sell 1 million copies in 2 weeks is nothing significant... but we like to think so and pat ourselves on the back regularly while we revel in our "power."
The simple fact is that while we are loyal customers, we are small in number, just like the "massive" open source movement that equates to 1-2% of OS's in use. That is not massive. Just like Nintendo is seeing they need to appeal to the widest audience possible and quickly Microsoft and the rest are following suit even though the "Hardcore" gamers feel a need to label them as k1d33 or lame... or whatever makes them feel more "cool" about playing videogames.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Few people consider spending $20 on a 90-minute joke worthwhile!
I'll join the rest of the people here in pointing out that any success it had is due to the interweb publicity.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Its amazing how the internet makes you forget about the real, actual world around you... how things that seem amazingly omnipresent really don't exist anywhere else. Its sort of its own little fantasy world, run by hyperactive squirrels on crack.
meh
"Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?"
Yes. That's the point isn't it, those bloggers are at home in their parents basements, not out on dates seeing movies.
News flash, couch potatos underrepresented at the Boston marathon...
Maybe if there were some mother******* snakes in the mother******* basements?
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
We geeks tend to forget that we are in the TINY MINORITY of the population. Joe Sixpack doesn't hang out on /. and internet fan boards.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Everyone I know went to see it... but that's because I'm a 19-year-old, and all my friends use the internet. And in every theater that I heard about, 98% of the people there were between 15 and 25. I think that as far as internet phenomena go, it was wildly successful... but it only reached the people who are reached by internet phenomena, mostly young men. And maybe once people learn that it's actually an amazing movie and not just a bad joke, more people will go to see it.
I would say a good precident is Serenity, the movie - that also had a lot of internet hype put out by some real fans (I think most of the pre SOAP buzz was from real people though the studio obviosuly encouraged it).
Both movies stalled out of the gate, almost to the same amount. Personally I was a lot sadder to see Serenity do poorly, but I can understand how someone who was really into the whole SOAP thing be dissapointed as well.
There was a lot more depth to Serenity though... not that I have seen SOP to judge, but come on. It's Snakes on a Plane.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Internet stuff was just fun that people were having with it, but I don't think that necessarily meant that those people wanted to see the movie... those who had made that decision based their decision more on the traditional marketing than on all this Internet buzz.' Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?
Not at all. Bloggers have the ability to reach a massive audience, and many actually do. However, it wouldn't surprise me if the average blog reader were inclined to make more informed decisions than his tv-watching counterpart. Or simply that people in general are more inclined to act in an informed manner than they were ten years ago. Either way, just because people spent a lot of time making fun of a movie doesn't mean that any of them will actually pay $10 to go see it.
As an aside, I personally think it's amazing the folks in Hollywood actually thought a movie called "Snakes on a Plane" would clean up in the box office. I like bad horror films, spoofs, etc, but the name of the movie alone classified it as something I don't intend to ever see.
Tracking said it would do roughly what it did - average for a mid-August-horror-release. It's simply that we all thought it would do well, because everyone we know knew about it. Watch the Daily Show's interview - everyone there probably went to see it. Guess what - they were the demographic anyhow. I think the name may have alienated some viewers, but it wouldn't have gotten people like me - I hate horror films, I went solely to participate. It was gorier than I would have liked, but a fun time was had by all 10 of us in the theater.
I think this counts as the "Howard Dean effect". Prior to one of the primaries, everyone thought he'd come in first, because he had this huge internet buzz. Turns out it didn't matter. Even if it's all of us techno-geeks, we're still a small percentage of the populace.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I'm fully admitting how out of the loop I am here, but I had no idea that there was any Internet buzz about SoaP until the press started complaining that "all the Internet buzz leading up to the film had little effect on ticket sales".
/searching/ for a blog, you won't find it. Blogs generally /aren't/ viral, which is part of the problem here - there was a central set of people blogging and reading those blogs, but the SoaP message never left that core group. It never became "viral" - i.e., a topic that was surreptitiously mentioned in non-formal venues, such as conversations, emails, etc.
What Internet buzz? There may have been a ton of buzz out there from a handful of people, but whatever marketing/advertising agency that was in charge of making the rest of the world aware of this buzz did a terrible job of getting that message out there.
This is taken in stark contrast to the internet buzz leading up to Blair Witch, where most people in the target demographic received emails or water cooler mentions from friends and colleagues. Somehow, the group in charge of promoting that film did a tremendous job building the viral marketing machine to get interest drummed up on the film.
There may have been people blogging about SoaP, but unless you're
In any forum, cannot turn a dud into a blockbuster. Also, I wonder what would have happened if the movie had been available on something like Google Video or Youtube to watch at the time of release. I'm more likely to fork out the cash to watch "Snakes on a Plane" if I could watch it comfortably from my own home right after seeing an ad on the internet. For Star Wars, I'm willing to go to the theater, but "Snakes on the Plane" is the kind of movie you see on dvd.
No Sigs!
Did any of you actually see the movie?
It was hilarious!
I don't like scary movies and I really don't like snakes. A friend dragged me to this movie and I don't know the last time I has such an emotional roller coaster. I was scared (the surprised kind) but laughing the entire film.
I was physically hurting when I got out.
Also SoaP is filled with great one liners.
I can't wait to see Snakes on a Plane on a Plane (in flight movie). That will be the day!
Joel
Burn Bright or Fade Away
Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?
Yes.
http://www.local6.com/news/9717727/detail.html
Snakes in a Theater... we all saw this coming. (until the lights went dim after the previews)
The problem is is that people who don't pay attention to Fark and Slashdot, have never heard of it.
I sent a message on my IM to a couple hundred people, asking if they were going to see it, the day before it came out, and the vast majority of them had never heard of it.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I think this is how the marketers think:
We need to advertise this movie. What is our target audience? Young males 16-29... What are they doing? They're blogging! Quick, let's put up a bunch of fake blog sites, seed existing blogs with references, and our target demographic will flock to see this movie.
I dunno about everyone else, but the blog postings touting the movie always seemed like those TV commercials that started using "hip hop" and "street" phrases to sell toothpaste ("It's the bomb! Bling bling! Off the chain!") long after the phrases have become old (and by old I mean that I, the least hip, most geriatric bastard on the face of the earth, finally understands what they mean because I Googled for the phrases and found a Wiki). It's like FoxTV saying "The arrest *went down* on Main St and Lincoln"...
This may sound silly but one unknown quantity is that a lot of folks (like myself) have a serious fear of snakes.
Intarweb hype or not, there's just no way some of us could muster the courage to see it.
Not nearly as many as New Line Cinema was guessing, I bet. Even so, SoaP was all the rage for a few months, so it's easy to get into the notion that it was going to be a smashing hit.
But one needs to realize that what you generally see/hear on the Internet isn't necessarily representative of the populace in general. Back in 2004, I was sure that Kerry was going to take the Presidential slot by quite a bit, despite being a Bush supporter (yes, I've realized my mistakes since then). Then Bush barely beat out Kerry, instead.
So what happened, both then and now? A few things.
First, the Internet is a great thing that covers the entire globe. This means that you're going to get opinions from a lot of places whose opinion, frankly, doesn't really matter overall. (Not that they shouldn't state their opinion, but someone from Russia talking about who they would vote for in the American primaries doesn't make a lick of difference.) This residual noise is going to confound the actual outcome to a point.
Second, turn out. While a lot of people say they'll go out and vote for Kerry, or go out and see the movie, that doesn't mean they'll actually do it. In this instance, people on Fark set up SoaP "Parties" for people to get together, drink a bit, then go laugh at the movie. Many of these requested RSVPs, and a lot of the people who hosted such parties said that a good portion of the RSVPs didn't show up.
Third, anonymity and 'fitting in'. People can claim on the internet to do things or to have done things that they will never or have never done. A Bush supporter that is an active member of a website that's predominantly anti-Bush is more likely to make anti-Bush comments so s/he won't be ridiculed. Similarly, someone might say that they are interested in SoaP so they can be part of the online group, but really don't give a damn.
It's the very reason that Slashdot has their little blurb above all polls:
The internet is wildly inaccurate except under the most precise of circumstances and settings, and even then the numbers can be flubbed.
At least this means that we (hopefully) won't see a lot of studios trying to build internet hype, when all the internet hype was created entirely by fans.
...but it did put a snake on some guy's... snake.
The 'Snakes in a Lavatory' scenes rocked.
I got a voicemail on my mobile phone with Samuel Jackson's voice blabbing on about why I should go see the movie. After that I definitely wasn't going to go see it. Did anyone else get these voicemails?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
"The Internet stuff was just fun that people were having with it, but I don't think that necessarily meant that those people wanted to see the movie," said Dergarabedian. and how was this not glaringly obvious?
From what I had read somewhere, possibly in Maxim, was that the film's makers purposely went back and re-edited / re-shot scenes to add sex scenes and profanity to get the film rated R instead of PG-13 (something about doing it for the fans - whatever). IIRC, films that are rated R will typically make less money than films rated PG-13 or G simply because the younger movie-goers aren't able to see the film.
So, essentially, they shot themselves in the foot.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Blame it on internet marketing, not the fact that you have a movie about snakes on a plane.
Really - even on places it has gotten high ratings it is because that group of people enjoy totally crappy movies and liked the audience heckling the movie. They liken it to Rocky Horror Pickture Show (so crappy it is entertaining) or Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the audience heckling). If that's you thing - OK, but the majority of people will just think it is crap. If you like it because of the heckling, your only going to get a night or two of that, then boring.
I never could figure out why they were spending so much on such a crappy thing. Heck, they even payed some political bloggers to commercial it. Porbably the absolutely worst audience for a campy movie about snakes on a plane. Try commercialing movies that fit what bloggers and thier audience enjoy and see if you do not get a better response (you know, what good advertising usually is considered).
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
They're focusing on the first weekend way too much. This is a movie which is going to have a cult following. This is a movie that's going to sell DVDs up the wazoo. This is a movie with LEGS, man!
Oh, wait...
I'm waiting until my shirt comes in before I go see the movie. You know, like the Star Wars and Trekkie nerds do. http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?produc tid=716
i went and the audience participated with the movie. there were tremendous cheers/laughter/etc.. this is the first movie i've ever been to where the crowd was so responsive. and it wasn't even opening night.
whether it made money or not, whether it gained critical success or not, it was a fun movie to watch in the theater and therefore was a great movie in my book. those of you skipping it for dvd will miss out on part of the experience. (there are plenty of movies i wish i saw in the theater).
You are correct, the internet hype is the only thing that saved that movie. The studio execs wanted to call it "Pacific Air 414" for chrissakes! I haven't seen it myself, but if it is as campy as Eight Legged Freaks then I'll end up liking it.
. . . "Snakes on the Plane" is the kind of movie you see on dvd.
No way! I went to see the first showing on Thursday night. My wife and I and our niece have been waiting for this movie for months, since Samuel L. Jackson was on The Daily Show talking about this movie.
Half the fun was sitting with other folks who enjoyed the campiness, the general "this is a bad movie and we know it" feel. The surprise was, SoaP turned out to be a good movie. Just candy, yes, but every once in a while, I like a big heaping bowl of ice cream, with hot fudge and butterscotch. That's what this movie was: pure candy, with no apologies. And still it was a decent movie.
Anyway, the audience was great, and made it well worth going to the theater for this movie.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
We've already been bitten by "Anaconda".
My friends and I went to see SOAP on Friday having only heard about it on the interweb.
I agree with the previous poster that without the internet buzz the movie probably would have bombed horribly.
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
Was anyone really expecting this to be a quality film? All the hype I saw was just because the movie was called Snakes on a Plane.
There was no incredible hype for Shaft starring Samuel L Jackson, so I dont think that his involvement really had anything to do with it. I admit that the title is pretty neat, but while I thought the title was neat, I also thought that the plot sounded weak and uninteresting.
I think what they are alluding to is that it wasn't a stellar, $200 million mid-summer blockbuster. But if anyone went to go see this film expecting it to knock Gone With the Wind or Deliverance of their top spots, they got disappointed. If they went thinking 'complete cheese', they too got disappointed. It's all perspective, young Jedi.
AccountKiller
SoaP cost $30 million to make. They'll make all their money back in the US box office (or close to it). Then there's the foreign box office (where this may not be remotely hot, but could bring in some cash). Then second-run movies, like college campuses, etc. I work at a college theater (head of ushering), and I'm expecting big crowds to Snakes when we get it (mid-October). That's a lot more money. Lastly, DVDs and DVD rentals. It'll make it's backers a lot of money. It'll have a better return on investment than a lot of other BIG MOVIE blockbusters.
I went and saw Serenity. I didn't see Firefly when it was a first run but even after watching it and the movie I don't understand the hype.
I love Science Fiction but to me Firefly was nothing but "The outlaw Jose Wales" in space.
I would rather see someone do Blake7 with a budget.
Snakes on a Plane?
Can not say that I ever wanted to see it. It is after all Snakes on a Plane. All I can think of is turn off the cabin heat and drop the temp down to about 30 and hunt the suckers down while they are in a stupor.
Not really a way to take out a plane IMHO.
Now rabid Hamsters on a plane. That would be scary.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What if the initial movie doesn't beome popular but the DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray release ends up having a massive cult following? Surely they cannot expect the measure the value of the Internet SoaP phenomenon until it's released on an alternative medium. How many geeks without girlfriends are really confident enough to go to a movie on thier own?
Bloggers can make a difference in a world, for example the Daily Koss and Moveon most certainly helped to sink neo-con Dem Lieberman in Connecticut and good riddance. That's good and important, really much more important than an overly hyped movie not grossing the tens of millions it didn't deserve. Hint to movie producers, less mindless crap please. When was the last time we had an Alfred Hitchcock quality mainstream movie that was both entertaining and mentally challenging? The first Matrix movie? Maybe, and even that was more pretentious pseudo philosophy than art.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Apart from SLJ's fee it probably cost damn-all to make.
So a "disappointing" 1st place opening weekend is probably quite OK, thanks...
I'm tired of these motherfucking articles about motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane!
This guy's the limit!
How could I have missed it? I wasn't intentionally avoiding anything, I honestly don't know what you're talking about. Do I just not visit the right sites to have witnessed the internet Snakes hype? Where was it?
And why would it make any difference? An hour and a half of lots of snakes, on an airplane, scaring people. I just can't wrap my head around how that could possibly be worth an hour and a half of my time, hype or not.
...on a plane.
Serenity. nuff said...
"If I was afraid of looking stupid... I never would have taken this job."
... to go to the bathroom.
My bladder capacity is less than the run time of a theatre movie - even without the soft drinks. So I wait for the movie to come out on DVD or the like, when I bother at all.
I also have little time to WATCH the darned things. I've got a stack of purchased movies many of which have been gathering dust for a year or more unviewed.
Further, the movies lately have been composed of situations, behavior, and probabilities so unrealistically warped to support stomach-turning politically-correct propaganda that I can no longer immerse in and enjoy the story - or even enjoy laughing at the idiocy of its rendering. (And this is compounded by a tendency to sanitize the movie further between its theatre and DVD/tape release. Example from a while back: The censorship of Yosemite Sam in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" - doubly ironic since the original book's title was "Who CENSORED Roger Rabbit.") So I rarely bother to buy and stack one any more.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You must not have seen this movie in theatres. It was an incredible experience. The entire audience was into it, and this movie will be lost if you do not see it with a good audience. This is not something that can be duplicated anywhere else. I was in a theatre full of people, ready to see snakes on a motherfucking plane, and bringing that energy with them. Watching this alone on DVD would NOT be the same. At all.
I'd never heard of this movie until I saw Sam Jackson on The Daily Show which I had illegaly downloaded. While it was funny to watch them go on about it being stupid, it also sort of drove home that the movie is.. well, I can only gather that it is quite STUPID. As in "Why the motherfuck would I'd motherfuck'a pay to motherfucking watch that?!". I wouldn't even waste bandwidth on something like that, much less spend money on it. That's some stellar old-school television PR right there.
Maybe they overestimated the market for truly idiotic films.
I think they could have made more of the 'insensitivity' angle. They should have marketed it with: if you do not go and see Snakes on a Plane, then the terrorists have already won. It would also have helped to bring forward the release date to August 16th, planned date for the liquid explosive attacks on transatlantic jets.
It would be handy if the movie included some suspicious bearded character on the plane who in the end turns out to save it Wesley-Crusher style. I haven't yet seen the film, so for all I know perhaps it does.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Aww, how tragic. The internet hath failed them! Since it got the number 1 spot, but took in only half as much as they were estimating, I'd say the problem was unrealistic estimates. Okay, so they discovered that internet marketing isn't a way to magically double your take without having any pre-screenings for the press. Big woop. Without the internet hype, the movie might still have the completely boring name Pacific Air Flight 121 or whatever (though S.L.Jackson gets credit for that too), and it wouldn't have the fantastic quote that gives the trailers half their punch.
I think it's funny that in TFA the guy who predicted a $40 million opening weekend and wrote a book about the movie's success before it even opened is now saying "Over-hype was a symptom which is not taken into account". Yeah... I think I see who exactly it was who was suffering from "over-hype".
The enemies of Democracy are
That's because everyone would rather be on the net watching snakes in da butt.
Do marketing people ever realize that hype can't help a really shitty-looking movie? Like ones with a crap-ass plot, where the laughable CGI snakes (that somehow make it onto a plane, and subsequently get loose) look even worse than the effects in low-budget 80's movies? Do they clue in that adding someone like Samuel L Jackson, a great (if not slightly type-cast) actor, doesn't "up" the movie's rep so much as lower his?? WTF was anyone connected to this bomb thinking? Snakes on a motherf#(ing plane, b|itch!
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77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
I think a number of people may be waiting for it to hit the cheaper theatres before seeing it. Given that the joke is basically that this is a B movie pretending to be a blockbuster, a lot of people may wait for the B theatres or DVD release.
The plot was conceived in a brainstorming session for coming up with the worst movie idea. The fact that they took such a horrible concept this far is a success in itself.
Bloggers cannot be trusted?! Unbelievable. This is the story of the century!
Quick! We MUST write blog entries to expose this!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The fact the producers were able to sell $13.8M dollars of dog excrement is not a sign of internet hype failure. More that is was a B-rated movie.
Just look a Serenity, without internet hype it would have brought in $2M not $20M.
Internet Retail spaces are wonderful. Get over it!
- They should announce they have found a way to generate free energy by passing snakes through a magnetic field*.
- Hide a few snakes in random movie theaters across America.
- Pay people to watch the movie and post rave reviews in their blogs.
* Actually this might work; all you need is a rat, some plastic tube wrapped in wire big enough for the rat/snake that goes in a circle, and a magnetic jumpsuit for your snake. Turn rats into electricity!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I was half asleep when I first saw the trailor for this film and fully expected an Energizer bunny to walk accross the screen at some point. I was truly amazed to see the trailer end without the revelation of a gag. What will the sequel be called "Lizzards on a Bus"?
Crappy boring movie does marginally well at the box office despite having been laughed at by people on the internet for quite some time now.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
It was never heralded as the great movie of the summer to begin with.
If you have low expectations, it really cant be a "dissapointment"
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I think they missed what the "Internet" was trying to tell them: You have a dumb movie, and we are making fun of you.
I wonder if they really read the blogs, jokes, and other comments. Marketing people should be able to tell when people are laughing with you, vs. laughing at you. Even without seeing 95% of the content out there, I could have told you that people thought it was going to be a dumb movie.
It was S. Jackson, his couple of good lines, and people wanting to see just how bad it is that got them just into first for the weekend.
They were expecting me to go see that movie? Actually pay money ($9) for it? This is some sort of joke, right?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
I thought it was going to be terrible; possibly even the next Plan 9 from Outter Space. Everything I've heard about it has been positive though, so I'm seeing it tonight. I think that Snakes will do relatively well in the long run since so many people are enjoying it now.
Well, sure it was Internet Hype. The same thing happened to Howard Dean.
The thing with the movie is, it made a good tag line to use online, and even for a few funny YouTube videos.
It's just that sometimes (in fact, a lot of the time), it just doesn't translate to the "real world".
Snakes on a plane, man. Snakes on a plane.
(see the original blog that started the hype)
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
AZspot
Quite honestly its one horror film after another, maybe people are just getting fed up? Should also mention that there is not much in the way of sci-fi or fantasy these days on the big screen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If I spray perfume on shit, in the end, its is still is shit. When the title completely summarizes the movie, you know Hollywood has yet again produce some shit. First, Samuel Jackson acting talents are wasted again as he plays his usual role of "bad black mutha that is cooool" who fights the "bad guys" (doesn't that sound stupid). Second, the plot... did they even bother to give one to this the movie. Third, over-reliance on computer generated effects. Wow look, they made snakes this time. Yawn!!! Perhaps, they should stop producing shit and the movie will actually return on the investment.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Perhaps the problem is the topic. Snakes aren't always a big go see them topic.......
With apologies to Dr. Suess:
I do not like Snakes on a Plane
I do not like them
Sam, I have no mane
I will not see them in a theater
I will not see them on a heater
I will not see them in a boat
I would not, could not, see them with a goat
I will not see them in the rain
I will not see them on a train
I will not watch them in a box
I would not, could not, see them with a fox
I will not see them in a house
I would not, could not, see them with a mouse
I do not like Snakes on a Plane
I do not like them
Sam, I have no mane
After watching bad snake flicks on SCI-FI all weekend, I wondered how they could get any worse...
...
Snakes in the Antarctic
Snakes in Russia
Snakes in South American jungles
Snakes on a Plane
It was really pathetic watching all these supposed "rattle snakes" that were actually harmless pythons or boas.
Bleh, this horse is dead...
Lets compare this to some other movies that have a similar target audience (source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/):
Anaconda:
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: N/A
Opening Weekend: $16,620,887
(2,456 theaters, $6,767 average)
% of Total Gross: 25.2%
A's: 38 5.7%
B's: 175 26.1%
C's: 261 38.9%
D's: 118 17.6%
F's: 79 11.8%
Anaconda THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID:
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $20 million
Opening Weekend: $12,812,287
(2,905 theaters, $4,410 average)
% of Total Gross: 39.7%
A's: 33 12.9%
B's: 33 12.9%
C's: 64 25.1%
D's: 46 18.0%
F's: 79 31.0%
Snakes On A Plane:
MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $33 million
Opening Weekend: $13,806,311
(3,555 theaters, $3,883 average)
% of Total Gross: 82.9%
A's: 159 54.8%
B's: 72 24.8%
C's: 15 5.2%
D's: 7 2.4%
F's: 37 12.8%
I'm guessing that if this would of been pg-13, it would of done better. Skip the nude, and add the catch phrase.
It might of also helped if people like me that went to the first local showing weren't forced to respond with a 'meh' as far as the movie goes. It was pretty obvious this wasnt originally intended to be R rated. The CG was very good, and I did get suprised a couple of times, but I wanted more snake killing (with associated gore). I found it odd that when the snakes attacked people it was gory, but the people didn't really actively fight back they just screamed and ran.
I know this is post 9/11 airplane stuff, so its not like everyone has a huge knife or a sword, but they could of fashioned clubs and went on a beating spree. Toss in a couple more tense search/rescue missions and let a main character get picked off next time. After the intense coverage of this movie I just spent most the movie waiting for what I knew was going to happen (catch phrase, nude scene, etc) which made it pretty hard for me to sell to others.
Also, the interview with the director twit where he downplayed the internet influence on the movie (the reshoot/reworking of it as an R title) almost made me skip it all together.
I have sat through all sorts of boring/painful recitals and local concerts because I knew the people involved, and felt involved since I knew them. Maybe next time you get all that positive buzz, you shouldn't down play the people that gave you the buzz and they'll pay their 20$ for a ticket and a soda.
The big question is whether SoaP will have staying power -- will it remain popular and continue to sell DVDs long after the fact.
Not to compare a dog like SoaP with a diamond like Firefly -- but Firefly was notable for its unpopularity during its run. There are lots of reasons for that, but most of 'em boil down to the fact that traditional marketing works. Major hyping of a movie through traditional channels gets a nice surge the first week at the box office. Major hyping of a TV show (and a stable slot for it) gets a nice viewership the first season.
Firefly has continued to grow in popularity as time goes on, showing that it has some staying power despite not-very-intense marketing as a TV show or as a movie.
SoaP could well turn into a long-term money maker in the mysterious college cult-movie circuit. It would likely have been DOA without the internet hype.
Samual L. Jackson and Bruce Willis in Unforgiven
"I miss my motherfucking bed!"
"Bed? Motherfuck, I thought you missed your motherfucking wife?"
>thunder rumbles<
"Gonna miss my motherfucking ROOF before too motherfucking long! MOTHERFUCK!"
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
After all of the jokes, stupid references, and whatnot about this movie... I'd really like to see it just to see exactly how ridiculous the movie is. I expect to see a cheesy plot, snakes on a plane, and Samuel L. Jackson dropping one-liners with the F-word in it.
The problem is that the theater is charging $9 a pop, making a night out at the movies for two an $18 affair, not counting the consession stand. Do I really want to pay for a campy movie that I'll be able to rent for $2 when it hits DVD in a few months?
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
"Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?"
Or, is an awful movie with Samuel L. Jackson still just a motherfucking awful movie?
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Which isn't saying much, but still.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
I thought the buzz WAS the product.
I wouldn't put it past the studios to try that again... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4741 259.stm
I don't remember seeing any of this 'hype' stuff. I remember seeing a couple of mentions on the web, and then a few days before release I saw some news stories claiming that there was lots of hype - probably fewer than I'd expect for a major summer movie release. So someone, please tell me before I miss the next lot of hype. Where do I see this 'hype' stuff? Is there a 'hype' web site? Is there a mailing list I need to subscribe to? Without it I just feel like I'm not connecting with therest of society.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
That was the single worst part of the movie. Just the way the line was placed in the movie (with him saying it to all the survivors left on the plane) was way too jarring. I think it'd have been much better if he said it to himself while hunting around to fix the ventilation system. That would have made those "motherfuckin'"s fit a lot better. ("I am so (*kill snake*) GODDAMN SICK (*kill snake*) of these MOTHERFUCKIN SNAKES (*kill snake*).. on this STUPID-ASS MOTHERFUCKIN PLANE! (*beat a dead snake*)" - something like that.
The rest of the movie was basically a campy variation of the old "aircraft disaster" genre (yes, lest we forget, it used to be an entire genre - which is why Airplane could lampoon it...) mixed with some thriller movie standards (like the amusing kills, the victims you're meant to hate, the various clumsy attempts to create tension with close-calls before the all-out assault begins, etc...)
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
$8.50 for a fucking ticket had absolutely nothing to do with it.
if you skip the theater experience for snakes on a plane, you may as well not bother watching it at all. this movie is meant to be viewed in a crowded theater full of rambunctious viewers, not alone on your couch.
the showing I went to, the audience was hooting and hollaring and clapping (the movie got applause at the end, even!) and, while this would be annoying during most movies, Snakes on a Plane is a precision exercise in making a purposefully bad movie for sake of comedy. It was like going to see a "midnight movie," only in a mainstream theater, and it was the best time i've had at a movie theater in a very long time.
more, please!
it is about SNAKES on a PLANE. Good has nothing to do with it.
If you want to see people in a plane get attacked by snakes, and S.Jackson through some intense Charisma around, go see the movie.
It's a B movie that happens to have an A list star who did it because it would be FUN.
I plan to see it, but only for the B movie ride. I don't think I'll be needing my brain.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This movie debut - 10 years ago = Complete and utter bust.
;^)
a kes_on_a_train_yes_you_read_that_right.html
And, ten years from now, this will be an complete and udder bust: Cows on a Plane
I did see "Snakes on a Train", and thought it was a complete joke (unlike my feeble attempt just now
http://www.themovieblog.com/archives/2006/08/sn
and the trailer on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSDo-lgBBvs
I have no idea why that first link has a space in it when it doesn't in the Comment field.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
http://members.surfeu.fi/kklaine/primebear.html
I honestly found the film to be completely hilarious. I was shocked when I entered the theater on opening day at 7pm, there were like 7 people there! I have a feeling this movie will come to DVD quicker than normal and that's where it'll make the most money. I think people were afraid that the movie wasn't worth the $9.75 ticket price...and I sympathize with them, it is kinda pricey, but the movie was great and I recommend anyone to go see it. I bet most of the ticket sales were from bargain matinee tickets.
But who (over 12 years-old) saw the previews to this and thought it would be a fun movie to see?? This looked like one of those straight-to-DVD films it looks so stupid.
The only way to make this movie exciting.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
The hype surrounding the movie did in fact make me want to go see it. I probably wouldn't have even heard of the movie otherwise.
However, the hype failed to impart any sense of urgency to see it... I'll see it when I get around to it. And if it's not still in the theater, I'll try to see it later on DVD from NetFlix.
It sounds like a fun movie, but not fun enough to make me drop everything to go see it! I have code to write!
This movie is going to make a profit well before it hits DVD. That's pretty good.
Not all random numbers are created equally.
My grandpa always said, "You can't turn crap to gold." Had Snakes on a Plane been Oscar award winner material, the Internet hype might have made a difference.
I guess everyone doesn't believe everything they read online anymore. Movie studios will need to find another gimick, because everybody knows they won't try making better movies.
I believe there's a strong possibility that even if it wasn't fabricated, it was at least intentional. Like maybe they didn't fake a grassroots internet phenomenon, but rather just did their best to provide a ripe, visible target for that to happen.
I do not believe there was ever any serious intent to call the movie "South Pacific Flight 121". I think that gem was put out there to stimulate more buzz.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Yep, they nailed it. I didn't and won't see the movie for simple reasons.
It has a stupid name (Snakes on a Plane?!?), a stupid premise, and nothing in the advertising I saw made me expect anything other than a stupid movie. In fact, I expect it to be a movie centered around what would have been a 30 second plot device in a James Bond movie 25 years ago.
Sounds like these people are waking up to the simple fact that new marketing doesn't make bad movies blockbusters. Shoulda called this one "Ad Execs on Crack."
What people (including all the analysts who were saying that the internet hype would catapult this movie to 100mil territory) are forgetting, is that internet memes are a double-edged sword. The link-of-the-week is just that... exciting for a short period, kinda fun for about a week after it peaks, and then quickly grows stale. SoaP followed the same rules and trendes as other internet mega-memes like All Your Base etc. The jokes are lame by now, and all the appreciation they garner is an eye roll.
If the movie had actually been released about 3 weeks ago when the meme was still fresh, I would expect that the internet effect would have been significantly greater.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/series/Anaconda. php
Released Movie Name 1st Weekend US Gross Worldwide Gross Budget
4/11/1997Anaconda $16,620,887 $65,598,907 - -
8/27/2004 Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid $12,812,287 $31,526,393 $47,026,393 $25,000,000
Totals $97,125,300 $112,625,300 $25,000,000
Averages $48,562,650 $56,312,650 $25,000,000
...what's this movie about?!?
After standing in line at the local omniplex theatre the other day for 45 minutes to get popcorn and another 20 minutes before that for tickets, I have officially sworn off going to the movies.
From now on, I'll take my dates out to dinner, theatre, or the symphony. These events are on par with the price of movies popcorn and drinks now anyway.
Ill watch movies on DVD or on pay per view on the HD satellite. I dont have to show up 2 hours early just to get a decent seat.
The worst thing about the theatre was that there were 2 more concession stands not even being used. How much would it cost to pay 2 more people to server popcorn for 4 hours? Sheesh!!
The movie became an internet meme, so while people did in fact see it at the theater because of hype and interest, the rest of the money went into.. oh, maybe.. blank cd's and dvd's, as the entire remaining target audience simply waited for someone to tape it and fire it off into the torrent trackers.
space is pretty cool.
First, the name of the movie is 'Snakes On a Plane'. It has to be a comedy. Secondly, all the flash animations I've seen of this movie have been stills terribly modified to render motion. Thirdly, if not completely the point, it has Samuel L Jackson dressed in a blue hawaiin shirt. Samuel Jackson....... Blue Hawaiin shirt....... With a gun.......... The shirt looks good, but, its Samuel Jackson.
Yes, I used grab/throw when playing zig at a local arcade, and now I can see what HAL/Nintendo copied to make Kirby.
About 15.000 people have voted for the movie om IMDb which is pretty high compared to the box office. This sounds
The explanation might be that many of those who have seen the movie actually are the bloggers and participants in the web culture.
But other people that have not witnessed the net hype simply didn't see the movie.
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
On one hand, the corporate first-run theaters that really count here aren't going to do well because the vast majority don't take well to things like audience participation and rubber snakes. This is a party movie, not as good as Rocky Horror but in the same mode, and if you can't throw a party in the theater then nobody will pay the huge ticket price, because the movie alone isn't worth it.
Where this film will work for years to come is in the same places Rocky Horror is still screened - small, independent, second-run theaters that are lax on protocol and run midnight showings. A theater with $5 or less tickets alternating between Rocky Horror and SOAP every day is going to have at least 10-30 people in the seats for midnight showings every night, which is better than 30, maybe 40 percent of movies ever do.
Most people in my office did not know anything about this movie other than it was (probably) a crappy horror/thriller. No one knew that it was an internet phenomenon. I had to explain to numerous people why i was so excited about what they thought was just another crappy summer movie. I also learned that most of my co workers dont watch the daily show and colbert ever! That was probably more shocking to me.
I did go see it with a friend of mine who hadn't heard the hype. He had just seen a bunch of comercials for it and likes brainless movies like that. I think this shows how out of touch with internet memes most people are. Almost all of the people had heard of craigslist though, so its not like they are living in caves without computers or the internet. An interesting experiment in moviemaking at least. The nudity was well done.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
People don't like snakes. Who knew?
Because it's going to be a cult classic and the DVDs will sell if there aren't 17 different iterations of it. Hollywood needs to get the Netflix statistics of what's being rented the most. Only then will we get more Firefly and Freaks & Geeks.
I just wanted to chime in with my own anecdotal experience about this movie. When the first wave of hype hit me, it was over the title. "Snakes on a Plane? How stupid is that? Samuel L. Jackson is going to be on a plane with snakes. Gee, that sounds great. Bleh." I remember there was even a massive debate as to whether or not this movie actually existed. Everybody thought it was so stupid sounding that it couldn't possibly be a real movie.
For MONTHS, this movie's been flying past my screen as just a big joke. It wasn't until the last two weeks or so that the good news finally started arriving. People went to the theater, watched it, and liked it. I was NOT going to see this movie until a couple of my friends went and said "It was fun in a not-to-be-taken-too-seriously-way". In other words, the 'negative hype' prevented me from seeing it, word of mouth is bringing me back to it. It's a pity, really. The 'get a call from Samuel L. Jackson' bit was pretty cute, but hardly enough to make me suddenly interested in the movie. Snakes... on a plane. BFD. Make it a parody, and you've got my attention.
From where I sit, the movie's lack of phenomenal success wasn't hindered by internet hype. I agree with some of the other sentiment that said "actually, it probably REACHED its mediochre standing because of the hype...". That is, of course, my own personal experience.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Commercial jets are the private property of airlines. Movies involving disaster on aircraft don't get shown on their flights, sorry :-(
The problem with the SOAP fan community was that it was unlike any other fan community that has ever existed and that is the inherent irreverence for the source material. Even cult movies like Rocky Horror or Plan 9 from Outer Space hinge on the fact that the source material is sacrosanct. Sure, people dress up and people show canned responses to well-known sequences... but the sequences never change, the films never change, the experience never changes. Sure, folks might come up with more elaborate costumes or better cynical jokes but the material is involatile. And you can say the same about the very film prints of SOAP except-
all of its community was built before a single frame was seen.
SOAP was an insipid idea encapsulated in a four word title. Other than that? It was an open canvas.
And the online community ran with it. It made jokes, it made photoshop, comic strips, stupid video, fake trailers, Photoshop Phridays, crap songs. And the convergence of social software just helped fuel it. Blogger, Youtube, Photobucket. In the end 99% of all original content related to Snakes on a Plane was generated outside the official film itself.
Not only that, but SOAP was something you could participate in. 15 minutes in photoshop and a couple of clicks and your picture of Mace Windu sitting on a Dune sandworm with "Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!" written poorly in Pbrush.exe could end up on a dozen blogs. SOAP was whatever you contributed to it. Even academics and culture critics are getting into it. There are going to be papers, books, theories, conjecture. Someone is going to approach it from a Baudrillardian philosophical perspective and say SOAP was the first movie to truly capture the post-9/11 zeitgeist.
Technology and society met at a point where this was inevitable. It just took four little words and an idea that everyone could appreciate the straight-faced stupidity of.
Because of this, the actual frames of the movie are sort of irrelevant. After six months of run up, it was just another signal against the whole span of content out there. And to be honest, it wasn't even as creative or funny as a lot of that anonymous posters came up with.
The movie is what it is: a generic B horror/suspense film. And anyone looking at just the screen will see that. But those who where out there last Thursday at 10:00 in a theater full of high schoolers and college kids hearing the last ticks of summer? That was the real Snakes on a Plane. People hissing, screaming, yelling. It was a truly shared communal experience. The content on the screen was mere pretext. It was a nation-wide community that hadn't been forced down from some marketing firm that went from flash to bang in six months. MTV, Nike, Universal-Vevendi didn't tell anyone to do this. I have to agree with the guys at RuthlessReviews.com, that's pretty heartening.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I'm tired of these motherfucking snakes in this motherfucking theatre!
>>>Well I actually liked Blair Witch a lot, it being one of the only horror movies to ever instill real emotions of fear in me (having been lost in the woods before helped me get into the movie though).
>>>
This isn't a criticism of you by any means and I can understand your feelings, but given my childhood of growing up in rolling-hills-and-deep-forests country far from many people, I had the exact opposite reaction to The Blair Witch Project. My take on the movie was "Oh god. Yuppie spawn lost in the woods. Is this movie over yet? *yawn*"
(I'm still posting anonymously.)
...wasn't delivered or in any way feature Samuel L. Jackson.
It's the scene where a smug asshole goes to take a leak, and is musing to himself about his penis size. (This character is definitely the target audience for all those p3-n15_E3nlaargmt spams you see.) He winds up tinkling on a great big viper. The viper leaps and grabs hold of his crotchal region.
"FUCKING SNAKE!!! GET OFF MY DICK!!!" he screams before succumbing to the venom. That's gotta be a more useful phrase than "I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane."
Yeah, I thought it was a whole lot of fun too. It would have become a DVD classic if it had been released without the hype...one of those movies people discover at the DVD store. As it is we still haven't heard from the rest of the world with regard to SoaP. Don't count it out just yet. It will make back the money it cost to film the thing and then some.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
It's the number one movie, how can anyone say it didn't work? I bet it will en up having good dvd sales also.
Even I knew it was a poor premise for a film. The person that green-lighted that project was probably using some type of controlled substances at the time. But I have a great idea for a movie, "Techs in a Cube".
"Put your message in a modem, and throw it into the cyber-sea." - Rush
You know that most people whom would not see it in the theater will not only buy the DVD, but will watch it every time it is played ad nauseum on HBO, Showtime, Skinemax, Stars, TNT, TBS, et cetera. The movie will do just fine as far as money is concerned.
Click here or here.
The concept of the movie is not interesting so why should they expect it to make money?
Teh Internets liked making fun of 'OMG!!!11 Snakes on a PLANE!!' big time..
Maybe Hollywood mis-took that attention for real love, when it was only fickle 'hearting' from afar.
The idea of 'Snakes on a Plane' is better to me than the thought of sitting through the movie. The internet took ownership of it and had their fun long ago..
SNAKES! ON A MUTHA-EFFIN PLANE!!
The movie itself is not new to most of the people who they thought would see it - and would have to borrow money from Parental Units to see it.
OMG MF'in' SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!
Look at me! I'm a bad ass mofo in a beret! On an mf'in' aeroplane infested with snakes!!
111!
--
My ironic anti-robot image is 'airfare'
It just plain doesn't look like anything vaguely similar to something I'd want to watch. Judging from the TV ads.
Me and several of my friends went to see the movie. We would have never went to see if it wasn't for sites like YTMND that struck curiosity into us. I think with the terrible premise behind this movie, that the movie wouldn't have come even close to number 1 in the box office if it wasn't for us. Its not that we, the fans of the hype, didn't make a big difference, its that we saved the movie from being a horrible failure and made into only a semi-failure.
what's all this hype everyone is talking about?
everything I've seen on the net prior to the movie's release seemed to be making fun of the movie, not celebrating its greatness.
From the experience of myself and my friends, the only people in the theatre were there to egg on a B-movie. There were cheers when Samuel first came on screen, and wild screams when he finally enunciated his anticipated "mutha---- snakes on this mutha---- plane" line. As far as I can tell, the only people who came to see this movie were fans who were aware of the internet hype. As far as the general public audience is concerned, this movie is a total bust. Wait for the DVD sales. Perhaps the shut-in internet addicts will prefer to see the film in the privacy of their own cave.
Okay, everyone tell the truth. Is there anyone who saw previews for this movie actually think it was going to be a good movie? I sat through one trailer for it and it almost sucked the fur off my balls.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Yeah, any other time I'd be perfectly happy to be bitten by a rattlesnake, not when I'm watching a movie. I'd hate that.
... "You fucked up! You trusted us!"
(and to mix up 2 classic lines....
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no basis for a system of government!"
)
You think it's going to be any better at home? Kids want attention, they want food and they want their needs to be cared for. While they probably don't have cell phones, they do kick things and talk, cry and scream A LOT.
Granted you can pause the DVD, rewind or whatever, but every stop or rewind is just going to make you one step closer to not understanding, or not liking the DVD.
I didn't want to see it after I saw the trailer for it.
After seeing it my impression was: "How long could a movie go on about getting away from snakes on a plane?" Where are you going to go?! How many 'rooms' could a jet possible have?
Maybe the movie is 'better' than that..... I may never know... until one of my co-workers lets me know.
...but two matinee tickets (mine and my buddy's) this past week-end were solely based on the Internet meme. Not huge, but that's $17 that wouldn't have been spent on the movie otherwise.
Blame Canada!
Most likely the best action comedy I have ever seen.
Had me on the edge of my seat one minute, and rolling on the floor laughing the next.
This is soon to be a cult classic. No disappointment for me.
Learn to stop judging the quality of a movie by it's sales.
Talladega Nights put me to sleep, but unfortunately I already bought the ticket.
What are these motherfucking shit movies doing in my motherfucking movie theaters?
Honestly, if it weren't for the Internet hype I would not have gone to see that movie. Also it didn't hurt that my manager bought our entire department tickets for a Friday matinee as a "team building" exercise. And all in all I had a blast at the film. My favorite part was at the very end when I said to my coworker "The only thing that could make this worse (therefor better) is if [sorry no spoiler] happened right now." And then, 2 seconds later, it did. It was awesome.
If something I said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
The movie companies are claiming that the movie did not live up to the hype created by Internet users.
My, how the times have changed. Any other time in the past, bloggers have complained that movie companies were the ones blowing hot air; the movies did not live up to the hype they created.
In the end, what matters is the experience you get at the cinema before recommending it to friends.
(and since friend recommendations go above any form of marketing at least in the long run, that's what matters)
And as for the quality, Rotten Tomatoes rates it at 67%, and the reviewers do seem to understand it's not to be taken too seriously.
The general opinion just seem to be that it's not really a truly great silly movie.
I guess there are no real shortcuts to greatness in the box office -- it just have to be really good to rate really high.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Yes, it is just hype. The grave importance attributed to the Blogosphere is a passing fad much like "Way New Journalism" was over 10 years ago.
Don't take all this shit so seriously. Things come and go.
otherwise hollywood would be spamming sites like digg or slashdot to promote their movies, although I'm sure they plan to anyway, cuz they know it will get a few more sales
Where first place...
...is a disappointment.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Cold-blooded critters loose on a plane. At 30,000 feet. Where it's -30F outside or thereabouts.
So you TURN OFF THE HEATERS and the snakes go torpid!
Any schoolkid knows that!
High concept, low IQ flick.
Just another proof of my First Law: "Common Sense Ain't! If It Was, We'd See A LOT MORE OF IT AROUND!!"
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Chicago, IL
Seriously half the people I knew that went to see that movie just wanted to see Samuel L Jackson swear, the other half wanted to see how crappy it was. I feel sorry for Mr. Jackson because now his name is tarnished a little for the movie, but if the studios couldn't figure out that the internet is power rather then thieves, maybe they should pay a little closer attention. It's not Fox that just randomly chose to bring back family guy. It was the huge dvd sales and internet support. Same thing for Futurama.
The sad thing is this lesson will be forgotten because next week the MPAA will say "they stole our movie online that's why they didn't come to the theatre" and the studios will once again shun us.
A lot of people have already mentioned that they can buy the DVD, which they can watch forever, for the price of two movie tickets, which they can use once. Owning (or renting at a fraction of the cost, or acquiring it by more... surreptitious means) has almost everything in its favour.
The biggest thing that cinemas still have going for them is that "opening day" buzz for people who want to see the movie as soon as they possibly can, preferably before anyone else they know has seen it. There is some logical sense in this, because it means you don't run the risk of hearing a spoiler; but it's mainly just psychological. It's fun to be one of the first people in the world to see a movie. It's annoying to know that lots of other people have seen it and you haven't.
But this doesn't apply anywhere near as much to Snakes on a Plane, because everyone who would concievably have been interested in it already knew everything about it. Also, the plot doesn't leave much room for suspense and twists - the title is a spoiler, for Cthulhu's sake. There was no reason to see it on opening night, so there was no reason to see it at the big screen at all.
I predict they'll make a killing on DVDs.
We finally have the chance to show that it pays to listen to people on the internet and we screw it up. Now hollywood has all the more reason to continue with the path in movies it is now taking and to not listen to us. All the people who hyped this movie and not went to see it just gave Micheal Bay another reason to not listen to the fans and make optimus in a flaming long nosed truck.
Once you've heard the buzz, seen the trailers, and chatted about it with friends, what's left?
For a while I honestly thought it was all a big prank, just a hype jest, and there was no such real movie. "Snakes on a Plane" would have stood perfectly well on its own, perhaps better, as a prank.
Of course it wouldn't have made any money. But then, it's only recovered half its investment. On the other hand, assuming it has any sort of staying power, and there are more people like my son coming home and saying that it lives up to the hype, then it'll make some money. (Gross, not profits, of course)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
snakes rule the sky - but pirates rule the internet!
[fuddy duddy] I have no idea what this movie is about, except snakes on a plane. I had no idea it was even a movie! Total blank here. No idea why it was considered cool before release. Have not seen a trailer or read one comment anywhere about it. I read this thread to see if there was any more info. None. I found out it was a movie. Well..duh, they make thousands of movies now, 99.9% are just fluffy stuff, nothing special, because the whole industry, like pop music, is saturated beyond any reasonableness. And..well...I think the **AAs suck and should be mostly boycotted anyway, because of their politics and lobbying for you and I to lose electronic rights. It must truly sucketh as a movie, but it shows people are cheaply bought off. When it gets to the one dollar used for the disc level (which is all ANY movie is really worth, easily copied digital bits on a cheap plastic disc) I'll watch it..maybe. I've been paying attention to the economy, war news, imminent and various natural and man made catastrophes, and living well in meat space..but hype over a movie, fans in advance?? What for? What gain is there? Methinks people are too easily brainwashed. Enjoy your bread and circuses they provide while the masters pwnz j00.
Back to paying attention to real life issues for me. [/fuddy duddy]
But it did make me to want to watch the movie.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
This film has been pirated more in its first few weeks than Star Wars Episode 3. One torrent site reports that several releases were downloaded over 55,000 times with over 8,000 still downloading. That's just on one tracker. Thats got to hurt sales.
Alot of the people on the net who do watch movies prefer not to see them in the theatre to be ruined by the dipshit dumping pop down your back, the woman who brought her 3mo old child to the movie who screams the entire time, or my personal favorite the two morons who can't shut up and talk the entire movie... and that's excluding cell phone, pothead(alternately: giggler), moaner, i've got the plague, foot bouncer on your chair, and numerous other morons.
Not to mention some figure why spend 30$ to goto the movies when you can buy the movie for less and own it forever.
I'll be more interested in seeing what it makes over the long run.
Shadus
Could this be a case where people failed to realize they were the butt of the joke, and not generating the hysterical excitement they thought they were? It is supposed to be a scary movie, right? Then, didn't they wonder why everyone was in tears laughing so hard?
It'll be a camp-movie classic, but I think most people knew it was going to be a goofy movie about snakes being dropped and lowered onto people. It's just not something you're going to spend $9.50 to see.
Personally, I'm going to wait for the Mystery Science Theater spoof.
That depends upon your usage of "lost". They were already doomed, but they knew where they were. Which gets back to the "lost in the woods" fear.
There wasn't any "lost in the woods" fear. They weren't "lost in the woods". They knew where they were and how to get out. They were trapped by evil magic.
And that's just not that scary.
"Was all of the hype about blogger power just that -- hype?"
To get people to spend $7+ to see a movie YES
To effect an election Maybe
Could someone summarize what this movie is about?
I think the reason this movie didn't do as well as it could have is because of their choice of title. "Snakes on a Plane" is just too drab and boring. Book publishers will tell you that the right marketing COMBINED with a good title will do a lot more for sales than anything else. My choice for a title: Viper Voyage.
People should stop making up their minds about movies solely based on hype. I knew about the hype, and simply thought it was a cool idea. I didn't pre-judge the movie, that takes all the fun out of 'going to the movies'. However, having saw the movie, I have to say I was entertained through the majority of the movie. Which is fine by me. Hell, I'd pay to go see it again. No, I do not believe that many snakes could ever be on a passenger jet -- to try to pass this movie off as 'believable' is just plain silly. In fact, I do believe there were quite a few fictious snake species in the movie, which furthers my opinion of 'Snakes on a Plane' being just an entertaining (kind of horror-ish) movie. To all of the snobby wannabe critics: You should go find something new to do for a living, because you are just not very good at being a movie critic.
Keywords for the NSA overthrow oppressive regime true believers marathon Manhatten the financial district blueprints I
However, the real point here is that yes, "Snakes on a Plane" did get plenty of publicity on the Net. From people making fun of an "terrorism" concept that was even stupid for Hollywood; a concept so stupid that even the Transportation Safety Administration won't search travelers for snakes at airports. (as of right now, but I haven't checked the news today)
In other words, "Snakes" got plenty of free publicity and damned near all of it was bad. Though I'm not at all sure if its dismal box office showing was due to free online publicity or people seeing the conventional marketing and coming to the same conclusion as bloggers. . . so stupid that it isn't worth spending $20 to go see.
As an "Airplane" style comedy, it might have worked. Was the studio not paying any attention to focus groups or did they recruit the intellectually challenged on purpose? If they'd figured it out in time, they probably could have edited it into a comedy with minimal reshooting.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Even the best marketing can't make up for a dumb idea. Don't get me wrong. It helps but you need more than just marketing.
This is a movie about snakes on a plane. I'm sorry but its just too stupid for me to spend $15-$20 to see in the movie theater. Maybe I'll see it when it goes to DVD - if nothing better is out on the same day. (Given the movies that have come out lately I won't get my hopes up.)
The theater experience isn't dead, in fact this movie made it come back to life! According to this article:
p e=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-08-22T223648Z_01_ N22280791_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-USA-SNAKES.xml&archive d=False
"Movie chain AMC Entertainment Inc. said pranksters at one of its Phoenix theaters released two live diamondback rattlesnakes during a showing of the film "Snakes on a Plane" last Friday. No one was injured."
Reuters has the story here:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?ty
Libertas in infinitum
Way to totally not understand A MOVIE.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
We really must remember several things.
One Internet hype is more likely to mean increased BT distribution then movie seats.
Two Internet bloggers are the people you normally see griping about movie prices and don't go sit in the seats anyways.
Finally the movie hype had some effect. I would of never seen the movie i had not of been making fun of the movie for six months prior to the movie release. I know several large groups that went and saw the movie and I might now that it got such low box office sales see it again with a few friends that have not gone, but the few people on the net that actually went to see the movie in all its stupidity will be far outnumbered by the people who watched the movie for free.
Without the Internet hype, this movie wouldn't have cracked the top 5. People love this movie and it will make money for years to come. I went to the Thursday night screening and one movie-goer snuck a guitar into the theater to play the theme song with his friends. Many people in the audience sang along. What other movie can claim that? As more and more people see it, they'll realize they're getting a campy "b" movie that is as fun as advertised.
and the hype will just go on. Yes I talk about YOU, you... "reader"! Why are you losing time with this? Wait... it's ME who's just made one more part of the hype...
My parser is a grammar nazi.
No matter how hard you market pancakes they still make lousy shingles.
Butts hit the seats for good movies. Make a good movie first, then make with the hype. Hire better writers and pay them better. Write movies so damn good actors will do them for scale just to say they were part of history.
[signature]
Desu desu??!
Desu desu, desu desu desu.
Desu desu desu , desu desu desu desu -- desu desu desu desu desu desu desu. Desu desu, desu desu desu desu!!! ^_^
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
lats prost!
Like someone else said, this movie was labelled with "cult" status before it hit theaters, which is different from most other cult films. I did see an "audience participation guide" published before the film came out, but for the most part it was lame.
However, now that the movie is out, things have changed. People were clapping and cheering during certain scenes both times that I've seen it (Friday and Monday), and I've been noticing parts of the film that are perfect for audience participation lines. Likewise, this IMDB thread has a few gems that audience members came up with while viewing the movie for the first time! After this movie has been out another week or so, I expect to see the last show of the evening populated by people who go there not for the deep and moving piece of cinema, but rather for a new, fun, audience-participation laden experience.
For those of you considering downloading it or getting the DVD, you are missing out. See it at the last showing on a Friday night, preferably at a theater known for a large, loud, youthful crowd. This film is nothing to appreciate in the traditional way, but it is something fabulous and rare... it's a fun movie to see in a theater.
My real disappointment with SoaP was that it wasn't hokey enough. Which is to say, just like the huge variety of snakes onboard the fateful South Pacific Air flight, the movie is quite a jarring variety of different textures.
At times, it's over-the-top enough to be funny, and at times, it's not actually a bad B-grade disaster flick, with actors far in advance of the caliber usually comprising the cast of Sci-Fi channel originals (not to mention, er, Samuel L. Jackson). It never really settles on one category. I decided to simply enjoy it for what it was -- part of it you could make fun of, part of it would be a stretch.
I suppose I simply prefer films to fall squarely into either the serious or the silly box.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I have to say, I have been seeing references to "snakes on a plane" on the net now, and around here, for, it seems like, months.
I assumed that it was to do with something that _already_happened_.
When I saw the trailer for the movie, it somehow seemed "old" to me rather than something new and interesting to see.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Now maybe your average person doesn't know all these facts, but they probably saw the film as mostly pointless and stayed away in droves because the advertising let them know how bad the movie is.
Any one care to take bets on how long before the MPAA tries to claim lackluster ticket sales / DVD rentals/sales is the result of rampant filesharing as opposed to people simply not seeing a really lousy film? :)
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
What we need is Motherfucking asses in the Motherfucking seats !
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
Alert us also when you go to the bathroom and which brand of milk you buy and it's fat content. We want to know all about your buying habits and personal schedules.
Your post somehow scores "5 Insightful" but it's the same as the people that call into CNN to answer their view polls as "Undecided" -- a waste of tube-clogging. If you haven't seen the movie, you haven't seen the movie. It's like refusing to see Army of Darkness in theaters because someone told you the line "Gimme some sugar baby!" was in it. You're missing 2 hours of goodness based on some tepid, flat-headed philosophy that you know one line of the movie, and that's all the movie had to offer. You're missing out.
No, I do not work for New Line, and had my own reservations about SoaP, but my fears were dispelled by watching.
I've been laughed at on the Internet for years and I haven't earned a goddamned red cent, you insensitive clods!
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The problem with this movie is the terrible title. From the very first time I ever heard "Snakes on a Plane" was a real movie, I immediately felt it would be terrible (whether it is or not--I don't know, I didn't go see it). My original reaction to the title was that "it must be a joke".
Seriously, I'm sure some marketing exec thought he was the shit when he pitched "let's give it this really stupid name, so everyone will notice it". It worked. Lots of media attention. Lot's of people "noticing" the movie, but for all the wrong reasons. Throw all the hype you want, if movie has dumb title, people will think it's a dumb movie.
Who ever would have thought that a movie about being stuck on a plane full of snakes would bomb? [ Gasp - Shock - Horror ! ]
Why don't they just make a movie of all the out-takes of Sam L Jackson saying stuff like, "mutha-fuka", "mushroom cloud layin' mutha-fuckin-mutha-fucka", "kill every mutha-fucka in da' room", etc. Isn't that why anybody went to see a movie about snakes on planes? So they could hear SLJ tell the biggest baddest snake that he is a mutha-fukka just before he blasts him?
Sigh. There have been times when I've walked out of movies, grossly disappointed that "they" got my money again. This time I'll just imagine how incredibly disappointed I would be. In my imagination I'll yell out, "this is fukken shit" again as I walk out and see if I get another standing ovation like I did in that other crap movie which my protective conscience has forcefully blocked from my recollection.
"This movie is fukken shit!", ohh cool, that did not cost me anything. Damn that was a shit movie. I won't even bother watching it on free-to-air to see it for real for the first and only time. I'm sick of those fukkers stealing 1-3 hours of my life under false pretences.
What's with movies getting so god damned bad? I just watched Hostel for the first time on DVD. I fully expected it to be scarey, especially since I expect Tarrantino to be a sick-fukker always. But it was weak as piss and boring. Not even the disgusting bits were disgusting. These movies are not even worth DVDShrinking down to a 35c DVDR. Sure there were some nice naked Euro chicks, but that's what good Euro porn is for. And in those movies, the guy really does get the girl.
Although I haven't watched this movie and it probably sucks... I'll probably watch it because of its stupidity. It may not make money in the box office or immediate DVD sales but it is quite possible that in may be a decade from now teens and college students viewing this movie for all its whacky plotlines and swearing and of course them vicious snakes
Snakes on a Plane! 2
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
The snakes on a plane concept is just not going to appeal to a sizable percentage of people. I managed to miss all the internet hype completely, so my reaction was based purely on seeing the TV adverts. It didn't excite me at all. Maybe I'll watch it one day on Sky Movies, but that's it.
Try metacritic. They take all the industry web reviewers and weight their score. SO critics that give 5 stars very often, count less.
What I have found though, is that you still get hype and groupthink from the self appointed cogniscenti of reviewers too. For instance on their Best Music Of All Time, they list Van Lear Rose as number 2. On listening to the record, it is nothing but hype. It may be produced by Jack White of White Stripes fame, but not as good as one of his own band's efforts.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Just bring some snakes to subdue* your neighbours into politeness.
*and for added effect
The entire concept is shit, the adverts are sub interesting and to be honest i'd rather drink a shot of vodka through my eye than sit through an hour and a half of (as described in the title) snakes on a plane.
It's called a reasonable opinion here and it is only flamebait for a DWEEB like you.
Besides, since when is first motherfucking place so motherfucking bad?
Here are some moments I remember quite vividly: Summer, 1986: James Cameron's Aliens. Audience loving every minute of it - laughing at Hudson's goofy expressions and cowardice, cheering at Hicks' "Eat This" and collectively gasping when the Alien Queen ripped Bishop in half. There were many, many other such moments... Fall, 1997: Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon. Theater was tomb-silent during most of the film until Laurence Fishburne gets a look at the video logs of the EH, watching as the posessed crew members tore each other apart in a hellish frenzy. After having enough he looks up and says, "we're leaving" and the audience must have laughed for about five minutes. Sometime in 1990: Bonfire of the Vanities. DePalma's leaden translation of the excellent Wolff book. The comatose Henry Lamb is getting a visit from his mother one evening. A crush of non-family visitors enters the room, and creating a ruckus that's too much for her to take. She angrily berates them for the noise, causing me to quip, "Shhh... you might wake him up from his coma" Everyone in my section laughed for about five minutes... Fall, 1990: John Woo's The Killer at the Film Forum in New York City. At the time, most Asian movies people had seen were Bruce Lee and Shaw Brothers pics. Jackie Chan was nowhere near the household name that he is now. The moment Chow Yun-Fat's character entered the nightclub, knocked on the door and began taking out enemy gangsters, an audience uproar began that barely let up throughout the whole thing.
Well, the reason I'm not going to see it is that all the buzz was funny - beats hell out of that Chuck Norris meme anyway - and the film isn't a comedy. A horror movie about snakes on a plane sounds generic and boring. Samuel L Jackson doing some self-parody could have been funny.
Though I haven't seen a genuinely funny hollywood comedy (i.e. not stuff by TV people like Team America) film in years, so maybe that's optimistic.
A movie about a disturbed-psychic-psicotic-teen-serial-killer that doesn't actually kill anyone, put together with a self-proclaimed Han Solo clone that manages to loose a fight to modern samurai/ninja with a wretched sense of honour and half a working neuron?
I never watched the original Firefly series, but I thought I would like from all the hype in /.. I was extremely disapointed when I grabbed the DVD.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
A typical B-movie that does $13.8M in it's opening weekend? That's not failed hype, that is a resounding success. This snake is bound to have a very Long Tail.
SoaP cost $30 million to make. They'll make all their money back in the US box office (or close to it). Then there's the foreign box office (where this may not be remotely hot, but could bring in some cash). Then second-run movies, like college campuses, etc. I work at a college theater (head of ushering), and I'm expecting big crowds to Snakes when we get it (mid-October). That's a lot more money. Lastly, DVDs and DVD rentals. It'll make it's backers a lot of money. It'll have a better return on investment than a lot of other BIG MOVIE blockbusters.
Indeed, this has been correctly modded as "Insightful" as it's probably going to be correct. What people fail to realize is that sometimes you can make up for bad box office with rentals or sales. The first Austin Powers movie actually didn't do too well at the box office, but it became (at the time) the biggest VHS rental of all time. I'm sure the eventual DVD sales (the DVD didn't come out until a few years after the movie premiered) and even some VHS sales were just icing on the cake.
I can only speak for myself, but I just have no interest in SoaP and I'm not sure I even would watch it as a DVD rental. I do think it could find an audience as a DVD rental or in DVD sales as it's the kind of movie that might pick up its audience after a release to theatres, just like the first Austin Powers movie did.
worst. post. ever.
Hollywood is confused. They don't seem to know the difference between hype and ridicule.
Captain Obvious says: "They were making fun of the movie you no talent ass-clowns!"
... that the movie came out around the same time that classes started for everyone, and people have a lot more on their plate this time of year? Had it come out last month I'm sure the opening weekend would have been better. Also - I wish I had a "meager" 14 million dollars.
"To work for libertarianism -- to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual -- used to be
All the hype made me wary of the movie in the first place. It seems my suspicions were correct.
A movie about a disturbed-psychic-psicotic-teen-serial-killer that doesn't actually kill anyone
Bar scene? Reaver scene? Did you fall asleep?
put together with a self-proclaimed Han Solo clone that manages to loose a fight to modern samurai/ninja with a wretched sense of honour and half a working neuron?
It really does help to have seen the whole series, the movie was not the greatest entry point into the whole thing. That said, I really doubt you'd like the series either, which is a shame...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i went to one of the Thursday night screenings and there is no way the crowd would have been sooooooooo rowdy if it were not for the hype. the theater i went to off and on would do 00:01 Thursday night/friday morning showings of new releases. they were usually pretty empty no matter what the film was. they had Snakes on multiple screens, and the theaters were totally packed (almost sold out). kids were chanting things before the film started. they cheered like an opening night Star Wars crowd, though they did not get quiet when the film started. a lot of them were pretty drunk (including the girl next to us that was throwing up). i think it was all the hype instigated by the internet.
.... personal?.... than just seeing billboards and tv commercials.
i honestly don't think that conventional promotion would get kids that psyched up for a movie that was so goofy. i would have believed that everyone else in the theater knew each other. i think it was more that so many kids were basically promoting it to each other, so it was more
i had a feeling the movie would have a (relatively) strong opening weekend, and then drop pretty quick. i'm sure that people are picking apart the phenomenon and trying to figure out how to apply that kind of unconventional low budget hype to some other movie/product. i really think a lot of it was a fluke. the name is brilliant, and makes you wonder "what the hell?". i don't think the same thing could be intentionally orchestrated for something like Coke3.0. remember, for a movie you just need each person to "buy" the product once. even if every review out there said it was the worst movie of all time, the opening weekend crowd (especially in this case) was a bunch of kids that don't care what the conventional reviewers think.
That matters?
Get up!
I think the biggest factor here is money. It doesn't cost anything to participate in the flurry of internet hype surrounding the movie, and it's still fun. However, actually going to see the movie does cost money. And a relatively large amount at that.
SoaP probably 'lost' about $5 Million because it's rated R. When I saw it, it looked like about half the audience could not pay for the movie becuase of their age, and I wasn't exactly helping with that.
Snakes on a Plane by Cobra Starship
I didn't see this mentioned anywhere, but isn't this one of the reasons why the movie got so bloated with hype? The song consisted of four singers, including William Beckett from the Academy Is... It also had a shot with Pete from Fall Out Boy in the video. This was in MySpace's and PureVolume's top hits for awhile, so all the annoying teenagers heard the song and saw the music video. We all know that they are over-dramatic about things... Isn't this at least one of the causes of hype?
While I am fully aware of the concept of suspension of disbelief, being married to a professional actress and being a FULL TIME PERFORMER myself, I also understand the THRESHOLD OF DISBELIEF, a concept that you obviously missed.
This film, in every respect, misses the flight path on that one. Fix one to the problem: drop cabin temperature to below 55F. Fix 2, is unable to get to the temperature controls, or they are inoperative, POP A HATCH! Yes, the cabin will depressurize, but the snakes will also have more immediate concerns that dealing with "threats" (humans) that they would NOT attack under any rational circumstances, anyway! They would be having trouble with an immediate temperature drop into deadly ranges AND would be having severe respiratory failure problems, while the PEOPLE would be using the emergency breathing systems.
Even given the premise that the snakes would attack as in the film, which they would NOT, EITHER of these two fixes would solve the problem in very short order.
Frankly, the movie producers would have done better with centipedes. The viausla would have been better, the cg easier and more convincing. Frankly several of the clips didn't scare the 8 year-old from down the block who looked at the trailer and said, "Lousy special effects. Not worth it." And they would scare a wider portion of the average audience.
But western audiences are mostly unaware that there are several species of asian centipede that are deadly to humans.
Sorry to disagree, but the boxoffice numbers speak for themselves - this "blockbuster" petered out after the first week in the theaters, getting beaten by a football movie. That alone speaks volumes.
Lee Darrow, C.H.
http://www.leedarrow.com/