Snakes on a Premiere Report
Monday, August 21st, 2006This is going to be long, please forgive me that:
I spent the last eight months of my life blogging about a film called Snakes on a Plane. I started my blog on a lark, hoping to get myself invited to the Hollywood premiere. I spent the eight months building towards the day I would walk down the red carpet in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and pass through the big doors into the premiere. The free popcorn once I got inside was, admittedly, an afterthought.
I’ve spent the last few days uncoiling (ha) and traveling home to DC. I haven’t yet written up a description of what happened, but clearly it’s time.
I got to the theater early in the afternoon, around 5:30, to pick up tickets. After being rebuffed by security a few times (they REALLY didn’t care to listen to why I was trying to get past them), I was able to find Nicole from New Line and got myself onto the fringe of the red carpet. It was a little bit early so I picked up my tickets and left for a quick dinner with my friends (I was ultimately able to finagle three of them into the premiere: my girlfriend, Jon and New Yorker). We were joined at dinner by Jeff Rowland who ultimately would sit behind me during the film. On the way to dinner, I met Reba Mac, who had managed to get herself invited at the last minute (Jakob couldn’t go, so his father kindly offered her his tickets) and was VERY excited to be there.
After dinner at a closeby Italian restaurant, we returned for the official “red carpet” event. I arrived at 7:45 and was huddled into the group of bloggers who had been invited to interview people at Comic-Con and who had managed to make it to LA for the premiere. I was only with them briefly, however, for they were spirited away to talk to press and I was asked to wait behind. I stood around for a few minutes until Nicole came back to walk me through the red carpet.
Man, it was weird.
First they walked me down the red carpet for photographers. Admittedly, only about a third were interested in taking my picture. I was very VERY hurt. They took a lot of pictures of real celebrities, and one or two or three or four of me (the last two from Hutchins Photo):
After walking down the red carpet, I was shuttled to talk to a number of press people. Some of them were major, like the AP, Reuters and the LA Times. I don’t know who this guy worked for, but he had a hell of a mustache. Others were, uh, less major like JewReview.net and the guy with the turban and the sock puppet (I wish I had written down his website, I’m curious if he used any of my admittedly unfunny interview).
As I approached the end of the interview gauntlet, I saw DC Lugi (David Coyne) doing his own interviews. He watched me do my final interview (with the SoaP DVD people) and was inspired by my performance to go back and re-do his interview with them. I think he was parodying my enthusiastic interview - it’s an honor to be gently mocked by DC Lugi.
After finishing all the interviews I went back and watched the real celebrities coming in. I only got a few pictures of them, but I made sure to get a few blurry pictures of Samuel L. Jackson. The press was, understandably, a lot more interested in them.
Eventually I entered the big theater, grabbed a free popcorn and sat down inside. It’s a BIG theater, and it’s really nice. Red velvet, or whatever… I was assigned to a seat in the 5th row, which was a little bit close, but the chairs were designed to rock way back, so it wasn’t too bad. Anyway, it just meant I was closer to the action. I spoke briefly to a gentleman in an orange suit who was sitting behind me, as well as a woman that was sitting next to me who worked at American Airlines. She had managed to insert a section about Snakes on a Plane into their official training manual. She showed it to me. It was pretty cool.
At about 9:20, David Ellis came out to introduce the movie. Basically he started to thank people, then said screw it, and called for them to start the movie. The curtains pulled back and, for the first time in my life, the movie started without a single commercial or trailer. It was amazing.
The title came up, and people cheered.
People have described their experiences with audiences in the comments to previous posts and all I can say is that New Line was wise enough to invite enough bloggers and other fans to the premiere (through MySpace contests and other means) that people were genuinely excited to be there and knew when to cheer. It was raucous. My experience with the crowd mirrors that of people who went to packed houses on opening night.
And Snakes on a Plane was, of course, Snakes on a Plane. After nearly year of build up I have to say that the movie exceeded my expectations. It’s actually sad that because I had run this webpage, I knew what to expect. I knew about the various sex organ bitings, I had presumed the window shooting… a lot of what I saw was what I was expecting to see… and yet, it wasn’t boring. That was always the fear, from day one, that the movie might not be good OR bad, but dull. This movie, as you can tell from reading the hundreds of comments posted here in the last few days, was not dull. It had snakes, it had planes, it had Sam Jackson, it had swearing. It had, in short, everything we were looking for.
It was somewhat obvious where the new scenes had been added. It’s too bad the movie hadn’t been conceived as an R-rated feature from day 1, but that’s ok. We got it in the end. And so did Keenan’s fellow bodyguard.
Afterwards I went to a blogger afterparty. There was a nicer afterparty on a rooftop somewhere with the celebrities. Unfortunately, I wasn’t asked to hobnob at that one. Oh well, maybe next time. Then, eventually, I went home and, eventually, fell asleep.
It had been a very long ride to get to the premiere. After either months of work, I was pretty sleepy.
So, while some of you have asked to thank me:
I would like to thank you. This whole experience wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for everybody else who made this website functional. Your enthusiasm and your talents have made Snakes on a Plane what it is. I know that, New Line knows that, and from reading the newspapers the last few days, the rest of the world knows that. With the exception of one comic, I created no content. All I did was centralize what the rest of you were doing. While I can’t say thank you to all of you one by one, I can say thank you to you as a collective. This whole thing has been amazing, and everything you have done has been recognized for the truly new and unique accomplishment that it was. And, of course, it got me to the premiere. Thank you.
This was a fun ride, maybe we’ll do it again sometime.
By the way, for anyone who is interested, I’m planning on moving forward with my previously stated idea in the next six months. I’ll let you know more when I can put together some details.
