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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?"
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
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.
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.
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?
Nah, if you're waiting for the DVD you've already missed the opportunity to see this movie in the best possible light. This movie needed to be watched on opening weekend with the fans.
Watching this at home is going to suck.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Miami Vice has a broader appeal than SOaP, it had the urban-gang-action thing for it (not that any of these movies are anything but B, no matter the gross), I'm sure there were hot thug-chicks, bad gangsta rap (better than the SOaP credit emo, I'm sure), and all the other things the hoi polloi love.
SOaP, on the other hand, had that bad campy feel, that most people don't like, since they want to take their movies seriously within-genre. Miami Vice was straight action, and advertised as such, while SOaP was... A spoof, of sorts, arguably a survival action flick, it was really just a comedy. Think Evil Dead 2, it looks like a horror movie, but in reality it is pure comedy, without the idiotic Sandler or Farrel jab of making damn sure you know its a comedy at all times ("hey look, this is funny. I pooped myself and ran into a window!"). All the people I know who didn't like it, didn't like it in the capacity that it was a bad action movie, entirely missing the fact that it was really just a spoof of movies like the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno. I think this movie is doomed to be a cult phenomena, and like all cult movies, doomed to semi-obscurity (who watches Rocky Horror, or Evil Dead, or even Eraserhead?)
Yes, it was obscure, but it did make 15m, meaning it wasn't too obscure. Everyone made a buck, everyone got their laugh. No news here, its a happy (and thus uninteresting) ending.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Its not youth per se, but in the last couple of decades traditionally poor people have been moving up through economic levels thanks to anti-discriminatory laws, expanding economies, urban renewal, social programs, etc. That means more people in the movie theaters who normally would only go rarely . They're also 'new money' and bring living room watching habits with them as they didnt learn what most people consider good habits at the theater because they almost never went as children.
Either this will become the new norm or the new demographic will conform to the old standard. Who knows. but its disingenious to just ignore the facts and parody the typical old vs youth nonsense.
Bingo! I have to believe 99% of all the people who passed around the "Snakes on a Plane" meme did so out of a "My-God-this-is too-stupid-even-for-Hollywood" mindset. Does it really surprise anyone that such publicity might not result in blockbuster sales?
I know these Hollywood marketing types are trained to believe that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but this is the second article I've read wondering why the Internet buzz didn't translate into 3. Profit! without either even mentioning the fact that all the hype was based on the absurdity of the film's name.
"No, no, this just proves the failure of the Internet as a marketing tool." Hmmm...then again, maybe it's a good thing for them to draw that conclusion, and keep these clueless asshats focused elsewhere.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
I thought the buzz WAS the product.
It was the highest grossing movie this weekend, right? First place? What were they hoping for? Zeroth place? I mean really
They were hoping that the movie would make back the 30 million it took to produce it on opening weekend. Instead they only make a measly 13.8 million. For comparisons sake, Clerks II, a movie of limited appeal that had almost no advertising budget made 10 million on its opening weekend (and only cost about 5 million to produce).
The problem here isn't that the movie only made 13.8 million, the problem is that it cost 30 million to produce it. The producers should have realized this movie would likely have a niche market, and spent a lot less money to make it.
AccountKiller
I saw "Serenity" twice; then I went back home to my podunk little home town and showed my copy to all the web-illiterate rednecks there. Then they bought it. Know why? 'Cause it was a good movie, damnit. SoaP is a joke, only not enough people are in on it.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
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
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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
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)
Seconded. I went to see it the day it came out... I was at the second screening of the day, and there were 13 people in the cinema. In the first of the day, there had been about 15. All of the people in the room were either geeks (the people I went with and myself) or looked like geeks (everyone else). It's a great shame, beacuse I enjoyed the movie a lot, despite the plot holes (how the hell would you get a device to open up the door of a crate full of snakes through airport security?).
I can see SoaP being very much like TRON; a good movie, but only really for geeks, and flopping because of it. Even though SoaP is more mainstream than TRON, I reckon it'll be the same.
While I expect that SoaP has been pirated and upload, I seriously cannot see it getting downloaded by more than a few hundred people.
Look at the internet hype and the numerous downloads that Episode III had.
The money it made was due to the Internet and very little else.
Exactly. This is the equivalent of, say, "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" debuting at Number One back in its' day. Or "Frogs". One favorable thing about "Snakes On A Plane" (SOAP?!!) is that it's a B-movie through and through, but with A-movie values. The extreme example of this is "Independence Day".
Another thing is that a movie like SOAP was marketed towards internet geeks, as opposed to film geeks (like myself), who'd much rather spend 9 bucks to go see something like Michael Gondry's "The Science Of Sleep".
Finally, what the hell is this obsession with freakin' Opening Weekend Gross? Whatever happened to films with staying power?
Okay, having a conversation with myself, I'm about to answer my own question: Staying power is in DVD, where SOAP is assured eternal cult status, therefore staying power. This film will make truckloads of money.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty