Two days ago I was interviewed by a reporter for the Hollywood Reporter, and today they ran this story about the movie and the growing fan culture. Here’s the most interesting part of the story:
Soon, the growing legion of fans added their voices as they demanded that that phrase also appear in the movie.
Apparently, the studio got the hint. When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded. (Editorial Note: this has been reported so many different times that I’m going to stop treating it as a ’spoiler.’)
Those involved with the film said the reshoots weren’t prompted by fans but rather by the existing footage that already was a hairline into R territory. Within the studio, the thinking was, “We’re already going to get an R, why not go all the way?” But the filmmakers do concede that the Jackson line will be in the movie for the sake of the fans.
A few weeks ago I was interviewed for and quoted in an AP story that ran in the ASAP, an offshoot of the AP geared towards a younger audience, about Snakes on a Plane. There’s another story up today from a different writer about the film’s popularity. This time, perhaps wisely, they interviewed Harry Knowles of AintItCoolNews, here’s part of what he had to say:
Once the film formally got announced as existing people online just sort of jumped to it … All the really weird Internet stuff started showing up — just random college Web sites and kids’ Web sites playing with the name “Snakes on a Plane.” There’s these really, really funky t-shirts that you can find on eBay that are just trying to make it look as cheap and funky as possible because that makes it look cooler. Now it’s got a very high-profile name brand sort of attached to it. A lot of people are looking forward to it in a “it’s got to be so bad it’s good” sort of way.
No quotes from me this time, but they did give a link pointing back here. It’s like we’re internet buddies.
You know, I honestly wonder if they realize the fact that half the people who have made snakes on a plane stuff are doing it because they think the film is so (stupidly) literally named, or that they treat it more as a joke than something that’ll change their life. And I hate to break to to anyone, but I don’t think this movie is gonna be good - I think it’s gonna be a joke, actually. Who knows, might surprise me and be good.