New Line has taken an interesting tack with the whole t-shirt phenomenom. It might be a little bit late in the game to make a difference, but when go to the Cafe Press Snakes on a Plane page, you find this:

Creating a unique program in the true ‘citizen’ spirit of Snakes on a Plane, New Line and CafePress have partnered to permit fans of the movie to become official licensees of Snakes on a Plane merchandise. This interactive promotion allows our network of over 2.5 million members to unleash their creativity to transform Snakes on a Plane artwork and ideas into unique gifts and share in the revenue stream. This completely unique approach to fan licensing, has never previously been embraced by any motion picture studio.

The one catch is:

Any content in the Snakes on a Plane Portal is subject to removal at the discretion of New Line Productions, Inc. and/or CafePress.com. You may not use any (1) copyrighted images or content created by New Line Cinema (e.g. images from the film); or (2) images/depictions of the individual actors in the film. All content must comply with the CafePress.com Content Usage Policy and be used in accordance with the CafePress.com Shopkeeper Agreement.

So, no pictures of Samuel L. Jackson. That’s mildly annoying. Oh well, there’s still a lot of leeway there. I wonder if New Line (or other studios) are going to keep doing this sort of thing in the future. Will the next generation of films even bother making their own merchandise, or just allow fans to do it for them?

All previous Fan Shirts.