Hugh Jackman makes his anticipated return as Wolverine this summer, but while he is excitingly reprising a beloved role, many agree he also perfectly capped off the popular mutant’s journey in the future-set X-Men sequel, Logan. Logan told the story of a popular anti-hero aging into his older years as he became a more broken-down version of himself. Jackman may not be veering too far off from that theme as he is now set to star in a darker incarnation of the story of literary folk hero Robin Hood.
According to Deadline, Jackman and Jodie Comer (who can also be seen this summer in the Jeff Nichols film, The Bikeriders) are set to star in The Death of Robin Hood. Michael Sarnoski, who directed Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One, will be penning and directing the retelling with Arrival and The Prestige producer Aaron Ryder on board to produce the film. Per Deadline, “The film is a darker reimagining of the classic Robin Hood tale. Set of its time, the film will see the title character grappling with his past after a life of crime and murder, a battleworn loner who finds himself gravely injured and in the hands of a mysterious woman who offers him a chance at salvation. Production is due to begin in February 2025.”
Ryder and producer Andrew Swett, of Ryder Picture Company, explain, “This is not the story of Robin Hood we’ve all come to know. Instead, Michael has crafted something far more grounded and visceral. Thanks to Alexander Black and our friends at Lyrical along with Rama and Michael, the world is going to love seeing Hugh and Jodie together in this epic.” Director Sarnoski added, “It has been an incredible opportunity to reinvent and freshly innovate the story we all know of Robin Hood. Securing the perfect cast to transform the script to screen was essential. I could not be more thrilled and trusting in Hugh and Jodie to bring this story to life in a powerful and meaningful way.”
Alexander Black of Lyrical Media will also be on board the project as a producer. Black would chime in, “We are thrilled to be part of this very special project and to be working with a visionary director in Michael, a phenomenal cast in Hugh and Jodie, and producing with our frequent collaborators, Ryder and Swett at RPC.”
Golshifteh Farahani of the Extraction films and Tahar Rahim of Madame Web have signed on to star in Alpha, the third film from Raw and Titane director Julia Ducournau, Variety reports. FilmNation and Charades will be presenting the project to potential buyers at the Cannes Film Festival – which is a good place for a Ducournau project to get rolling, since her film Titane won the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top award, a few years ago.
FilmNation Entertainment and Charades provided the following statement: “Alpha is Julia’s most personal, profound work yet, and we are looking forward to a global audience discovering the story with as much excitement as we did. We can’t wait to bring the film to market in Cannes and to launch sales together for the first time and collaborate in this way.“
That’s all they would say about Alpha, as the plot details are being kept under wraps for now.
So, for an idea of what kind of film this might turn out to be, we can only look back at the films Ducournau made previously. Her first movie, Raw, had the following synopsis: Stringent vegetarian Justine encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world during her first week at veterinary school. Desperate to fit in, she strays from her principles and eats raw meat for the first time. The young woman soon experiences terrible and unexpected consequences as her true self begins to emerge.
Then Titane told this story: Alexia is a dancer who, after being injured in a car accident as a child, has a titanium plate fitted into her head. Amidst a series of brutal and unexplained murders, her path crosses with Vincent, a firefighter desperately searching for his long-missing son, changing their lives forever.
Of course, those descriptions don’t convey just how wild, strange, and sometimes messy (we’re talking messes caused by fluids) those movies were. Alpha is likely to be another wild ride, so it will be interesting to see what it’s about and how it turns out.
Are you a Julia Ducournau fan, and are you interested in Alpha? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The summer movie season is upon us. Ryan Gosling’s new film from David Leitch is a love letter to the stunt world and the promotion for the film has seen a lot of fun developments. Gosling and SNL cast member Mikey Day reprise their roles from the viral sketch where they resemble Beavis and Butt-head for the premiere. Additionally, the red carpet would feature some amazing live sequences from stunt performers, as well as Gosling fighting off a number of henchmen while appearing on talk shows.
Deadline has reported that the new action movie has kicked off its run on Thursday with $3.15M from showtimes that began at 5PM as well as Wednesday advance screenings. Analysts expect The Fall Guy to reach $30M+ in its opening gambit, with some studio execs saying the film could reach $35-40 million. Previously, The Fall Guy was scheduled to release a couple months earlier on March 1st, but Universal would push the premiere later as Disney/Marvel Studios delayed Deadpool & Wolverine to the end of July. The Fall Guy cost a reported $130 million to produce and while the numbers estimated for the opening aren’t typical for high-action summer fares, this year will definitely show an unnatural nature of performances due to the delays caused by the union strikes of last year.
The Fall Guy is receiving a warm reception as it gets a certified fresh rating at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, and our own Chris Bumbray had a blast with the film, saying, “The Fall Guy really is a terrific summer action movie and a throwback to a different (better) time in genre movie-making. More than anything, it’s a tribute to the stunt industry and a demand that it gets the recognition it deserves, with the point made over and over that CGI action is lame and can’t hold a candle to the old ways. I’m inclined to agree.” You can view his full review HERE.
The new film adds to the newfound popularity of Ryan Gosling as the actor takes on more commercial roles and has said he will take less and less dramatically intense ones, “I don’t really take roles that are going to put me in some kind of dark place,” Gosling said. “This moment is what I feel like trying to read the room at home and feel like what is going to be best for all of us. The decisions I make, I make them with [wife] Eva [Mendes], and we make them with our family in mind first.”
As far as superheroes on film go, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is one of the most iconic portrayals of a comic book character ever. From the first X-Men movie in 2000 to 2017’s Logan, Jackman was synonymous with the character until he hung up the claws. But the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine sees him convinced to pick them…
As far as superheroes on film go, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is one of the most iconic portrayals of a comic book character ever. From the first X-Men movie in 2000 to 2017’s Logan, Jackman was synonymous with the character until he hung up the claws. But the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine sees him convinced to pick them…
I’m having a great time with Stellar Blade, the new character action game from developer Shift Up that launched as a PS5 exclusive on April 26. As I embark on a second playthrough thanks to New Game Plus, I fall ever more in love with the combat, the story, and the world. I’m also finding more and more outfits for our…
I’m having a great time with Stellar Blade, the new character action game from developer Shift Up that launched as a PS5 exclusive on April 26. As I embark on a second playthrough thanks to New Game Plus, I fall ever more in love with the combat, the story, and the world. I’m also finding more and more outfits for our…
Lydia Deetz, her stepmother Delia and her daughter Astrid stand over a casket, the burial services in progress. We can barely make out who the funeral is for but there he is on the headstone: Charles Deetz. While Charles was once part of the Beetlejuice sequel when the ghost with the most was to “go Hawaiian”, he was written entirely out of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice…for reasons that will soon be obvious.
Despite the original’s and sequel’s dalliances with the afterlife, Jeffrey Jones will not be in Beetlejuice – or pretty much any other legitimate movie – following his disgraceful tumble from his small but reliable spotlight. Perfectly fitting into prestigious period pieces and goofball funny flicks. Jones is a Golden Globe nominee with consistent work – a mix of villain, comedic and at times patriarchal roles, Jeffrey Jones went from Ferris Bueller baddie to Who’s Your Caddy?
But to truly understand what happened to Jeffrey Jones, we go back to the beginning. The beginning began when he was born on September 28th, 1946 in Buffalo, New York. It was Jones’ mother who encouraged him to pursue acting; and while he focused on pre-med at Wisconsin’s Lawrence University, he did soon take to stage productions. Soon, he fell in with legendary theater director Tyrone Guthrie, studying under him at Minneapolis’ Guthrie School. He, too, would study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Jeffrey Jones took to small theater, travelling the world and stepping into roles in prominent works like Trelawny of the Wells (1975) alongside John Lithgow and Meryl Streep and taking on various roles in The Elephant Man (1979-1981) with David Bowie as the lead.
Jones would move on to television, mostly in one-offs, miniseries and TV movies. His first notable credit would be in the Cold War actioner The Soldier (1982), next playing a sleazeball opposite Rodney Dangerfield in Easy Money (1983). But his true breakout came in the widely acclaimed Best Picture winner Amadeus (1984), playing Emperor Joseph II, who shows great support for Amadeus and Salieri. For his performance, he would earn his only Golden Globe nomination (Best Supporting Actor) to date, later missing out on an Oscar nod. More importantly to his career, it would land him his signature role: Dean Edward Mooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). The ultimate authoritarian, ego-tripping prick – at least to the teenage mindset – Mooney was on the hunt for the titular schemer and skipper. Jones played it perfectly, exuding a sleazy weasel quality that hadn’t been taken to that level ever before in a high school movie, moulding one of the genre’s quintessential heels.
His Amadeus role would also land him Howard the Duck, also out one year after Transylvania 6-500, in which he played the mayor. Here he was Dr. Walter Jenning, but Jones really comes undone when he gets possessed by the Dark Overlord (also voiced by Jones); the movie is a notorious rotten egg, but Jones plays the character to great effect, giving an over-the-top and unhinged performance. That same year, Jones played Thomas Jefferson in a TV movie. Now that’s some diversity right there!
1987 would be a casual waste for Jones, playing an army officer in The Hanoi Hilton and Buffalo Bill in a Kenny Rogers vanity project for CBS. But he had made the mark he needed to, being recognized by Tim Burton as just the man to play patriarch Charles Deetz in Beetlejuice, showing a comedic timing that let him play the foil to hauntings and “Day-O.” Tim Burton would go on to cast Jeffrey Jones in two more movies in the ‘90s: Ed Wood (1994), in which he played real-life psychic personality The Amazing Criswell, and Sleepy Hollow (1999), playing the town reverend. He had become part of Burton’s growing fleet of frequent collaborators. Another friend and occasional face was that of Paul Reubens; but more important than Pee Wee or Batman Returns was his tie to Jeffrey Jones’ undoing.
Jones ended the ‘80s with Sherlock Holmes twist Without a Clue (1988), playing second billing to John Candy in Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989) and pairing again with Miloš Forman for Valmont (1989), an 18th-century period piece where in character desired to marry a 15-year-old girl…He, too, gave the sitcom scene a shot, playing a cartoonist who can bring his works to life in The People Next Door, which lasted all of 10 episodes (half of which never aired).
The ‘90s started off promising, playing a submarine commander in John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October (1990). Then came a trio of flops, all in 1992: Out on a Limb (reteaming with Ferris Bueller co-star Matthew Broderick), in which he played twin brothers; idiotic sci-fi family flick Mom and Dad Save The World; and Stay Tuned, another idiotic sci-fi family flick – but at least this time he got a chewy villain to play. After an uncredited turn in Oliver Stone’s Heaven & Earth (1993), he balanced out the rest of the decade with a mix of comedies and dramas. There was a small role in 1995’s Houseguest, then moved back to his stage roots playing Thomas Putnam in The Crucible (1996). Meanwhile, 1997 saw him playing a law firm partner whose big mouth gets him killed in The Devil’s Advocate, an over-the-top racist in The Pest and a part in indie Flypaper.
1999 was just as diverse for Jones, appearing in Stuart Little as Uncle Crenshaw (a role he reprised for a couple of episodes of the animated series) and horror flick Ravenous as a colonel who turns into a cannibal.
He, too, would spend a sizable portion of the 1980s and 1990s doing spots on shows like Amazing Stories, Tales from the Crypt and The Outer Limits, as well as lending his voice – one of his strong suits – to shows like Duckman and EEK! The Cat. As for movies before he got in trouble, there was a role as a senator in Company Men (2000), a hotel manager in Heartbreakers (2001), the primary antagonist in Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), and even the vice president of the United States of America in How High.
In the early 2000s, Reubens was under a year-long investigation for lewd material. While no evidence was found and no charges brought, the search became a lead to Jones. And in 2002, he was arrested for possession of child porn, even supposedly hiring a 14-year-old boy to pose for explicit photographs. As such, Jones faced a felony count of using a minor in an explicit film and a misdemeanour of possession of child porn. Jones denied all accusations, saying, “All I want is for the truth to come out and for this matter to be resolved as quickly as possible.”
After pleading no contest, Jones received five years probation and had to register as a sex offender, also being made to undergo counselling. Following the sentencing, Jones stated, “This concludes a really painful chapter in my life. I am sorry that this incident was allowed to occur. Such an event has never happened before and it will never happen again.” But troubles would haunt him still, as in 2004 he failed to update his sex offender status in Florida and in 2010 failed to do the same in California, receiving 250 hours of community service as punishment.
And that was pretty much the end of Jeffrey Jones’ career…Pretty much. Before this, Jeffrey Jones had solidified himself as a familiar face among movies and television; he wasn’t quite a character actor but he was undoubtedly a character, a certified “Hey, it’s that guy!” kind of guy.
Despite his troubles, Jeffrey Jones still landed a vital role on a key show in the Golden Age of Television: that of newspaper editor A.W. Merrick on HBO’s Deadwood, tagging along to a cast SAG nomination and even being invited back for the 2019 movie. Outside of that, Jones appeared in junk like Who’s Your Caddy? (2007) – his first “major” movie since his arrest – and 2014 disaster flick 10.0 Earthquake.
And that’s just the sort of fare we would expect from Jeffrey Jones now…if he gets a role at all. Once a familiar face and recurring part of Tim Burton’s repertoire, he fell from his minor grace with a thud. To most of us he’ll always be Ed Rooney and Charles Deetz, and while his disgraceful behaviour doesn’t take anything away from the movies – they’re just too good to have one pervert ruin it. How appropriate that his acts buried his career and his Beetlejuice family closed the casket on his legacy.
A number of us will be celebrating Star Wars Day this weekend, May 4th, by binging as many of the franchise’s movies as we can. Yes, that may even mean working in The Phantom Menace, the much-derided film that set the tone for the rest of George Lucas’ prequel trilogy. One of the primary targets of the hate was nine-year-old star Jake Lloyd, who was taking on a lot of responsibility to play Lil’ Vader. But one guy he had on his side was one of the nicest fellas in Hollywood: Ron Howard, who leapt to Lloyd’s defense after he was attacked in mainstream media.
Ahead of The Phantom Menace’s release, Newsweek published a piece that cited “insiders” saying that Jake Lloyd couldn’t act his way out of a pod racer, with the publication referring to him as “Mannequin Skywalker.” But Howard – who was actually at one point approached to direct The Phantom Menace – wouldn’t stand for attacking a child.
In a letter sent to Newsweek, Howard wrote to the author: “While your “Buzz Wars, Episode One” piece was generally snide and insipid, the pot shot at nine year old Jake Lloyd was down right irresponsible. The piece cites, unnamed “insiders” who are critical of this nine year olds performance . I have no way of knowing how accomplished or professional he may have appeared during the principal filming, but I seriously doubt these “insiders” are inside enough to have seen an edited version of the new Stars Wars, because I have and in my opinion, Jake Lloyd is terrific in the film (which, by the way, is truly amazing).”
The letter Ron Howard sent to Newsweek after an article critiqued Jake Lloyd's performance as Anakin Skywalker in 'The Phantom Menace' (1999)
Howard – a former child actor himself – continued directly defending Lloyd and child performers as a whole, adding, “Movies are subject to public scrutiny, yes, but for Newsweek to attack a child’s performance based on rumor and without even having seen the movie is shameful. As someone who was acting professionally at an early age, I can assure you that nine year old Jake is quite capable of reading , understanding and feeling the full humiliation of a piece like that. He may not be able to comprehend the reason that it was printed, however, but then obviously neither can I. Maybe someone from your editorial staff should try and explain it to him.”
Sadly, Jake Lloyd cut his acting career short due to the constant bullying he received. He, too, would experience numerous mental health issues, including suffering from schizophrenia. Lloyd’s mother has been transparent with fans, detailing what her son went through in the years following The Phantom Menace. Fortunately, there has been a shift within the industry as far as who is off limits, backed by the major outcry when the Razzies nominated 11-year-old Ryan Kiera Armstrong for Worst Actress, something they quickly – and rightly – rescinded.
Overall, it’s a sad story that Jake Lloyd had to go through any of this, but it’s pretty incredible to see prominent Hollywood players sticking up for him at a time when it was so easy to do otherwise or stay silent.
Should child actors be off limits from this level of criticism? Was Jake Lloyd really that bad in The Phantom Menace?
The episode of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? covering Snakes on a Plane was Written and Narrated by Mike Holtz, Edited by Jaime Vasquez, Produced by Andrew Hatfield and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
When you go back and take a look at the movies that were released in 2006, you might think we were all high. I mean some of us were but regardless, everything was so over the top. Eli Roth’s Hostelwas tearing off tourists’ clothes while slashing their Achilles’, The Hills Have Eyesremake was gnarly in every way and does anybody remember that really cool but super weird Paul Walker flick Running Scared? We were on some dark stuff back in the mid-2000s. It wasn’t just the horror and action genres, either. Comedies like Grandma’s Boy had a level of wildness to them that you don’t see these days. All of these were released before August of 2006 when the mother of all over-the-top egregious and slightly cheesy but kind of awesome movies was released unto the earth. Well, at least in name. A name that conjures all the curiosity in the world while simultaneously explaining itself perfectly. A name that alone sent the internet into a frenzy for months. Ladies and gentlemen, the verbal version of Ryan Gosling’s scorpion jacket in Drive. Today we’re talking about just WTF happened to Snakes on a Plane?
It all started in 1992 when University of Pittsburgh administrator David Dalessandro read a nature magazine about brown tree snakes finding their way onto World War II airplanes. As if those fighter pilots weren’t already having a bad day in the middle of a world war. Satanic Bob Ross just added a little happy snake in there to brighten up their day. Dalessandro then wrote the screenplay about a singular snake loose in a plane, giving it the forgettable title of Venom. Then, he watched James Cameron’s Aliens and decided that moderation was for cowards, adding many, many more snakes to the script. Still, many studios turned down the script until someone at MTV Paramount read it and said to themselves, “We made a movie called Pootie Tang. No one can stop us.” They teamed up with New Line and Snakes on a Plane was in business.
Speaking of New Line Cinema (who took over production), the original director hired for the project was Freddy Vs. Jason and Bride of Chucky director Ronny Yu. That’s when the infamous Samuel L. Jackson who had worked with Yu on a film called The51st State heard about this and reached out to his friend. Jackson asked if he could be in the film and Yu, surprised, said “sure”. Yu then reached out to New Line who didn’t even believe their director that Samuel L. Jackson wanted to be in a movie called Snakes on a Plane. When in fact, the name was the only reason Jackson wanted to do the film at all. To the point that he signed on to the project far before a script or cast had been completed. Jackson is actually the only reason we’re not sitting here talking about a movie titled Pacific Flight 121 right now (and let’s be honest, we probably wouldn’t be). As Jackson tells it (while laughing) “They gave me the script, it said Pacific Flight 121, and I’m like what the f*ck is this? And they were like ‘Well, you know, we don’t want to give it away’…. and I’m like YOU EXACTLY WANT TO DO THAT. That’s why I’m here. I’m not here to do Pacific Flight 121. If that’s the name of the movie I quit!”. Finally, afterleaking various things to a rabid internet fanbase who also demanded the film keep its amazing name, Jackson had his wish granted. Snakes on a Plane was here to stay… but the director wasn’t.
Samuel L. Jackson told a part of the tale, saying “Next thing I know, Ronny got fired. And they were like, “Well, you know Ronny’s not doing the movie now. We hope you are going to stay. I’m like ‘Hell yeah. I’m doing the movie. It’s Snakes on a Plane. I wanna do it.” The official reason given for the director and studio parting ways was budget and creative differences.But as Yu tells it, he wanted to off Samuel L. Jackson early in the film and the studio wasn’t having it.Yu said, “If you put Samuel L. Jackson in it, and you have Snakes on a Plane, who is the star of the show? Is it Samuel L. Jackson, or is it the snake? If you want Samuel L. Jackson to be the hero, then the snakes weren’t that important, because you knew at the end Samuel L. Jackson would save the day.” He continued, “ If I’m allowed the creative freedom, then I’ll do it a little differently with Samuel L. Jackson. I’ll make him more of a surprise for the audience. … He can be a cool guy, but kill off the cool guy, so people hate those snakes. Rather than have the normal hero come save the day, I think the audience wants to see something a little bit different, unpredictable.”
And so, the legend of these mother effin snakes on this mother effin plane continued without Ronny Yu. Yu was replaced by director David Ellis. A guy who had an insanely cool life before his unfortunate passing in 2013. A pro surfer turned stunt actor, turned stunt coordinator, and second unit director who cut his teeth as the official director on Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco. Ellis would then go on to direct Final Destination 2, and the underrated Chris Evans thriller Cellular, before Snakes on a Plane came his way in 2006. A project that might sound like a fun and easy breeze, until you actually think about the particulars of putting mother-effing snakes on the mother-effing airplane.
The concept would involve a 33 million dollar budget and the full construction of a two-story airplane built on a hydraulic system to provide a realistic turbulence effect. This led to all the actors spending their days working on the set, which was manually controlled, often shaking all over the place. Oh yeah, and a metric buttload of snakes. The film used over FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY real-life snakes, with snake handler Jules Sylvester responsible for the little Satanic bastards. There were delusions of grandeur about using far more practical snakes for the film than they ended up using… eventually realizing the complications of this were just too much. The majority of the snakes we end up seeing on screen were a mix of animatronics and CGI but some of the snakes were indeed real, including a twenty-two-foot-long Burmese Python. By the beard of Zeus, there is no way you could have gotten me on that set. Much less if it were my very first film, such was the case for ole’ Tim Riggins of Friday Night Lights, Taylor Kitsch. Kitsch told Jimmy Kimmel years later that during his sex scene in the bathroom of the plane he was told to fall in the aisle dead. What they didn’t tell him was that they were dumping a box of live snakes out that would then be slithering all over his dead body while he was supposed to remain still. He freaked out and lost it as anyone not named Chuck Norris would but they apologized and all was well. Samuel L Jackson himself had a clause in his contract that made sure he would not be made to be within 25 feet of a live snake.
Producer Craig Berenson says Samuel L Jackson wasn’t the only one who didn’t want anywhere near the snakes, saying, “We would tell every actor that we were auditioning that there would be live snakes on the set. And some people would not come to audition”. But some folks did and now they were tasked with filling an entire airplane with folks who we’d have to be at least interested enough in to want to see die or feel bad for them when they did. And oh, did they die.
Snakes murder our cast members in a myriad of ways from being bit on their naughty parts to snakes slithering inside their orifices to wait… did I just say snakes slithering inside their orifices? Uh-huh. There’s also a disgusting “sucking out the poison” moment that will forever make that sound far less sexy than it did before you watch the scene take place, and one guy Brett Favre’s a chihuahua right into a snake’s mouth. All these events happened to and around a plethora of fun to watch folks that included actors David Koechner (basically as an even hornier version of his Anchorman character), Julianna Margulies, Rachel Blanchard, Kenan Thompson, Lin freakin’ Shaye is in this for some reason, along with Flex Alexander and Terry Chen. Bruce James plays an over-the-top flight attendant who has the pleasure of microwaving a snake on a microwave that if you pay attention has a “snake” setting on it. Because Snakes on a Plane.
There’s a whole subplot going on in Snakes on a Plane about a witness to a murder (played by Nathan Phillips or as I remember him, the shaved head dude from Wolf Creek) being transported by Samuel L. Jackson’s Neville Flynn to testify. The guy he’s about to testify against is the one who put all these snakes on board in the hopes they would kill everyone, including the witness. No one needed all that exposition, though. The title said it all. And those four little words are all it took to create a total internet sensation.
When scriptwriter Josh Friedman’s blog post about being offered to write a movie called Snakes on a Plane went viral, the internet was immediately hooked. This all led to a Chuck Norris joke-type sensation where the masses were making all kinds of media based on just this simple idea. There were songs, parodies, short films, and jokes galore. The studio smartly capitalized on this craze through various contests and sweepstakes. The best part of it all came from something I remember doing at the time myself; On the now unfortunately defunct website “Varitalk.com” you could sign up to have yourself, family members, friends or enemies receive a call from Samuel L. Jackson, yelling at you and marketing the film. If the person had a relatively common name and you entered in details such as where they worked their interests, and personality traits, it would then call them and leave a message with Samuel L Jackson personally dressing them down before reminding them to see Snakes on a Plane. This is Blair Witch Project-level marketing we need more marketing departments to put in the effort to duplicate. Hell, I’d settle for those little Batman Forever cups McDonald’s used to sell. Those things ruled.
It was moments like this that were really spearheaded by Samuel L Jackson because he understood what the studio had on their hands in a way they didn’t. Jackson would say of the film repeatedly “It was the kind of movie I would have gone to see when I was a kid” and “I feel sorry for all those people that are going through that whole trip of ‘Why would Samuel Jackson do something like this’ and ‘it’s lowbrow’. It’s a movie. People go to movies on Saturday to get away from the war in Iraq and taxes and elections news and pedophiles online and just go and have some fun and I like doing movies that are fun.” Mother-bleeped-er. I added that last part. Sorry. Roger Ebert was one of those people at the time and had criticized the movie before it even released, leading to director David Ellis joining Jackson in saying “to Hell with what critics think”, responding “It’s not important at all. Look at the films that have been released this summer. I haven’t seen a good review yet. There’s huge box office (for those movies, as SOAP hadn’t been released yet). I think Ebert knows nothing about this movie. He’s not in the demographic that’s following this stuff on the internet so for him to speak out about it before even seeing it…..(shrugs)”
The pair would instead lean into what their now-viral audience was wanting, even going back for re-shoots to add some of their requests into the film including the famous line. A line that would end up being one of the top 100 greatest movie lines of all time by Premier in 2007. In the TV version years later, it would be hilariously changed to “I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!”.
Samuel L. Jackson said of the online audience “They started talking about amping up the violence and the language and everything else in the film that we kept saying while we were shooting it that they should be doing anyway. And that was another fan-based suggestion that worked out great.” Armed with the online fans’ winds at their back, New Line ordered five additional days of reshoots and in the process had the rating changed from a PG-13 to an R-rating to suit their newfound audience. But would it pay off at the box office? It certainly seemed like it at the time and other studios were watching to see if this was the new model for movie marketing. When asked if Snakes on a Plane was about to be the template for Hollywood marketing going forward, his response was “Hollywood is going to wait and see what happens with Snakes on a Plane. I think if we have the success that some people are predicting, I think that it would and should.”
It didn’t hurt that the band Cobra Starship’s banger of a new song on the soundtrack titled “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)” hit #32 on Billboards Modern Rock Tracks charts. The film also received tons of fan songs and movie-inspired songs from artists via its multiple contests and marketing popularity, a four hundred-and-five-page novelization adding lore to the film, comic books, and a soundtrack that also included songs from Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy and more. The hype was there. The movie was in the can. All the world was watching and it seemed like a surefire hit was about to change movie marketing forever. Until it didn’t.
After all the fanfare, the expected opening weekend box office haul was between 20 and 30 million based on industry analysts’ projections. Snakes on a Plane instead made 15 million on its opening weekend and dropped more than fifty percent in week two, bringing in just 6.4 million and a total of 62 million worldwide when it was all said and done. Though this may not have been deemed a failure otherwise, in the case of Snakes on a Plane, New Line expected a much brighter return leading Robert Shaye to call the movie a “dud”.
Snakes on a Plane was officially one of the earliest reminders that the internet is the internet and the real world is the real world. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t all have fun! And if you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough. Trust me, I know. We can smell our own.
Snakes on a Plane did surprisingly well with critics, sitting at a 69% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing. And let’s all hope it stays there because that’s hilarious.
Do you know what’s not hilarious? During one particular showing of Snakes on a Plane in Arizona, some fan, or as I like to call them, complete and total asshole, released two live diamondback rattlesnakes into their dark theater. And left. Somehow, nobody was bitten and a snake wrangler was called to collect the snakes peacefully. Join me in hoping that guy has something really inconvenient happen to him today, wherever he is. Box office be damned, Snakes on a Plane is a far bigger part of the pop culture of the world today than anyone probably ever thought it could be. A marketing phenomenon and an example of how fun it can be to let your hair down and not take yourself so seriously. Laugh a little! Turn your brain off! Get your *Bleeped* bitten off by a snake! Or whatever. I think most of us are just glad this movie exists… and what more can a movie ask for? And that my friends is just WTF Happened to Snakes on a Plane. Thanks for watching!
A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
