A few months ago I pointed out a board game that was scheduled to go on sale in the future. At the time I questioned whether it was legit as they didn’t have any contact information and they were taking pre-orders without a solid-ship date. Well, it appears I was wrong to have questioned them as they’ve sent me a ‘review’ copy of the game. You can order them here. It actually looks fairly professional:

The best part, though, are the player cards which include such classics as:

I haven’t gotten a chance to actually PLAY it yet, but just reading the cards has been amusing enough. Check out their official site if you’re interested in more: Cobras in the Cockpit.

DVDactive discovered some information about the upcoming DVD release, along with a few graphics:

They’re reporting the same basic information that I posted a few days ago:

This wildly popular film will be available to own from the 2nd January, and should retail at around $28.98. The disc will carry an anamorphic widescreen presentation, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track. The full specs have yet to be revealed I’m afraid, although we can confirm that extras will include a gag reel, ten deleted scenes, a music video, an internet fan featurette, and much more.

$29.98? Seems a tad steep.

A few weeks ago there were snakes on a Pensacola Highway. I now have one more picture of them, and I really like efforts of whoever did these, so I’m going to post it yet again. Enjoy:

A few weeks ago I had a little mini battle with New Line’s legal department over the upcoming DVD release. The short version of it was that they wanted Disney to sue me. It would have been, I imagine, a very short lawsuit. Anyway, due to that back and forth I know they were working on a segment for the DVD called, ironically enough, Snakes on a Blog which told the story of the online phenom by way of interviews with a number notable/recognizable people in the online community.

Anyway, after checking around a little bit, I found a little bit more information about what’s being planned for the DVD. Here’s the mini-list that I have unofficially ferreted out:

• Deleted scenes
• Documentaries
• A ‘gag’ reel
• Trailers
• TV spots
• Commentaries
• Easter eggs?

Commentaries could be great. It would have been neat to see a version of the film as it would have appeared had New Line not agreed to bump the film from a PG-13 to an R. Sort of a here’s-what-you-would-have-gotten-if-people-hadn’t-demanded-an-R-rating version. It would have been interesting.

Jump the shark?  No, jump the snake:

When something that was hyped to be great turns out to be mediocre, especially when you really should have known better in the first place.

This differs from jump the shark because it refers to something that was never good to begin with, versus something that was good and went bad.

Ah, Urban Dictionary, you can be so harsh.  You loved us in the past.  What happened?  What happened…

I received this little marketing piece the other day as I got out of a cab in DC. It seems like it’s a little bit late to start pushing the film, but, well, I guess you never know when a passenger on his way to Dulles is going to be in the mood for a cab-receipt-originated film recommendation.

Snakes on a Plane is apparently opening soon in Japan and they’re currently working on the official Japanese website. The imagery looks cool, and very similar to the Taiwanese poster that’s now hanging on my wall.  Here’s the graphic from the Japanese site:

They’ve been asking for permission to link to this website. I’m not sure why they need permission, but hey, granted.

I’ve been mighty quiet lately. The film, obviously, has opened. We all had a good time. Sadly, I’m back in school and spent last week traveling in Boston searching for jobs. I’ll be spending next week traveling in Los Angeles searching for jobs. Anybody want to throw one my way?

Anyway, to keep us on topic here, here’s a series of Fan Comics from around the web:

As with everything lately, my attribution abilities are just awful. Please let me know where these came from.

All previous Fan Comics.

Yuck:

Are “Snakes on a Plane” really just “Snakes on a Plane?”

In a post-9/11 world, it’s not likely.

Eh:

I think the best 9/11 movie is probably Snakes on a Plane, with its fantasy that we could just have Samuel L. Jackson snarl the terrorists into submission.

Here we go:

“It has never once made me think twice about getting on a plane. Maybe I’m stupid, but I’m not afraid of flying. I’m more afraid of snakes on a plane.”

This has been sitting in my inbox for a long time, but here’s an essay assignment that was handed out at a college this spring:

Media Industries
Essay #2

3 – 5 page Paper in my Mailbox, and in my email INBOX by Friday April 28th

Please write a 3-5-page paper answering one of the following questions. Please support you ideas with research from the textbook and other sources. Remember to properly cite all reference material. Answer one of the following:

1. We have covered the production and marketing techniques employed by the motion picture industry but every now and then a new situation arises that changes the way things are traditionally done. There is a Movie that is currently in Post-production called “Snakes on a Plane” that has generated so much buzz that it has actually altered the final product (dialogue has been added due to “audience pressure”, and remember that this film has not even come out yet). This was only possible through the use of new technologies; particularly blogs and video blogs  (such as YouTube.com), which have created a new publicity landscape that, could become a template for future Motion Picture productions. Research the film and the related audience created content. Comment on what this means for the future of the Motion Picture industry.

2. Advertising and PR compliment each other. At times, the industries have struggled to remain separate and distinct but in the last five to six years, agencies have increasingly tried to coordinate the two activities to exploit the benefits of both. This has been called Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). Find recent examples of IMC campaigns and how they have succeeded or failed in their goals. How will this affect the future of the Ad/PR industries (more integration and synergy, more conglomeration?)? Examples can be found in the textbook, but there are many more details available from other sources

Anyone want to take a stab at it?

The Sioux City Journal chimes in:

There are three types of people in the world: People who don’t get “Snakes on a Plane;” people who get “Snakes on a Plane;” and people who get “Snakes on a Plane” but don’t want it.

…

Asking yourself if you’re going to like an R-rated movie called “Snakes on a Plane” is like looking at the nutritional statement on a double bacon cheeseburger. If you have to ask, you don’t want to know.

In other news, there’s apparently a Congressman from Iowa named Steve King. Do you think he was elected exclusively on name similarity? I’m voting for the next candidate named Samuel L. Jakeson.

Snakes have shown up on the highways around Pensacola as drivers approach the airport. Here’s just one example photo:

Does anyone have any more photos of these?  Thanks to Wise82Guy for this one.

I’ve gotten a few things in the mail in the last few weeks. I’ve been slow about posting it all, but here’s an update.

This meta-shirt was put out by Look at Me Shirts and can be purchased here. I know it’s a little bit late to be picking up new shirts, but, hey, it’s really never too late.

Snakes on an umbrella? I know you were all waiting for this to come out. You were sitting there, holding on to your last twenty dollar bill, on the verge of financial ruin, just waiting, WAITING, for a Snakes on a Plane themed umbrella to be available. There never was one before, there probably never will be one again. But there is one now. Damnation-Inc rocks.

And finally, the most precious of the three items. A friend was on a work-related visit to Taiwan and took this picture, which I was pretty happy with, until my package arrived in the mail today containing a Snakes on a Plane poster in, well, Chinese? I assume Chinese. Pretty cool, eh?

Anybody want to send me more foreign posters?  It could be a thing.

Has Snakes on a Plane finally found it’s sequel?

SnakesattheDentist.com, I mean, sure, why not?

We’ve had a few real Snakes on a Plane stories before, but here’s a new one. Well, it’s old, but it’s new to the Internet. Gary was kind enough to let me know about an incident he had back in South Africa:

We really did have a snake on our plane!

Whilst living in South Africa, my dad had a Piper Cherokee 6-300d. We landed at a grass strip outside Kenton-On-Sea where we had a holiday home.

A few days later as we where taking off from the runway, my dad the pilot noticed a loose green wire hanging from the dashboard. As he reached down to grab it, it moved. He made an emergency stop, and everyon board made a hasty evacuation. My Gran (who is 100 this year) witnessed the spectacle as we leapt from the plane.

And he was kind enough to send in a newspaper clipping from the Sunday Times from around January 18th, 1977:

And, in unrelated news, the Dallas Morning News ran a story listing all of the real Snakes on a Plane incidents they could find. Neat.

Has Snakes on a Plane killed the influence of blogs? PC Magazine investigates:

If such a tsunami of interest leads to just a trickle of real revenue in the movie business, what does this mean for other favored blog causes? Will the blogosphere still be able to bring down political chieftains? And what role will blogs play in the U.S. presidential elections? A real test will come up in this year’s midterm elections, where close races are the subject of endless blog debate and attempts to sway public opinion.

I’m not really sure people look at the issue in the right way. Let’s assume (and not everybody does) that Snakes on a Plane was a financial failure. But what was interesting about Snakes on a Plane’s online phenom was not that it was necessarily generating revenue (although, of course, New Line would have hoped that it was). What was interesting was the sheer impact that Snakes on a Plane has had on the general culture. Today, for example, in a law school ethics class, my teacher, a partner in a local law firm, mentioned how he was trying to find a way to tie Snakes on a Plane into his upcoming lecture plans.

I don’t see that happening with many other movies. There aren’t a lot of grad school teachers discussing Beerfest.

Maybe Snakes on a Plane was a financial failure, but it has had a wide reaching impact, and that’s something that most films don’t. Maybe the internet couldn’t coerce people to see a movie that they didn’t have any interest in seeing, but it certainly made them aware of it. 50 years from now, people will still remember Snakes on a Plane, but nobody will remember Beerfest.

Well, 20 years anyway.

Shakespeare was far ahead of his time. Here’s an excerpt:

So come, ye traveler, and fix thy mask
Of air upon thy visage. Soft, but breathe
Most normally. Yet offer none who hiss.
For gods in high compartments o’erhead
Have granted me with gilded blades aloft.

Who knew Shakespeare was such a visionary.

Snakes on a Plane could make for a KILLER reality tv show:

Synopsis: 20 contestants (10 male/10 female) travel by commercial aircraft to 10 different cities around the world. With the crew and pilots secure, the contestants will share the cabin area with 200 snakes. 5 of the 200 are poisonous. Each flight will be between 5 -12 hours in length. The reward at the end of each flight will be a day spent in luxury visiting the exotic destination city. Contestants can then choose to fly 3 friends out and extend their visit for week, all expense paid OR get back on the flight for the next leg of the competition. If at any time a contestant is bit by any of the 5 poisonous snake, antivenom will be administered and they will be eliminated.

You could be on this show… uh… assuming it’s real.  Which, you know, is unlikely.  Anyway, applications can be submitted to lcaa_productions@yahoo.com.

Sometimes people compare Snakes on a Plane to World War II, sometimes to youth sexuality. I guess they both make sense:

Snakes on a Paper
Or
The effects of sexual repression on today’s youthAn objective study by Andrew “Busdriver” Meggs

Snakes on a Plane is the best movie ever. With a combination of Samuel L. Jackson and venomous snakes, there is no doubt about Snakes on a Plane’s supremacy. For those that do not know, the plot of Snakes on a Plane involves people fighting snakes on a plane. On the surface, Snakes on a Plane, or SoaP, seems a generic thriller, humorous in some aspects, disgusting in others. To the casual observer it may seem no more than a play on a teenager’s emotions, catering to their unique look on life. Indeed, SoaP targets a teenage audience, but not to garner financial gain. SoaP targets an adolescent audience to inform the unwittingly repressed teenage masses that society does have a problem with its views on intercourse, and sexual thoughts in general. Snakes on a Plane comments on western society’s hypocritical view of sexuality, and its repression of said sexuality through the symbolic use of snakes representing western society.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to BoxOfficeMojo Snakes on a Plane has now taken in $36,352,192 ($28,535,193 domestic + $7,816,999 foreign). If the budget numbers provided by IMDB are correct, the film is now officially in the black.

Black enough for a sequel?

Bonus video - why people shouldn’t be disappointed by the Snakes on a Plane box office:

Why Snakes on a Plane bombed