I got tanked and saw one of the most awesome movie experiences I’ve had all year. I went with Smoth and 2SXC to Extreme Planet (notorious for its recurring audience’s bad behavior during shows) in order to catch the flick because in order for me to maximize my experience I had to do 2 things: 1) get drunk and 2) go to a showing with a reaction-prone, rowdy crowd. Extreme Planet would provide both. I was excited. I knew I’d have fun… it was just a matter of how much fun I’d have and when the first kills started to come in I could breathe easy; this movie was going to be awesome!

I’m not going to review “Snakes on a Plane” because a review doesn’t do the movie justice. I suggest you gather up all your friends and her drunk/high. After that, go to the theater and watch “Snakes on a Plane.” The bigger the crowd in the movie theater, the more fun you’ll have: I think that what’s happening here is that people are taking this seriously when it’s anything but serious. The movie has amassed cult status and will now sit beside other movies with massive following such as “Donnie Darko,” “Memento” and others. There’s been a lot of talk about this movie on the Internet so I’ll just stop beating on the dead horse and tell you that if you’re still curious about the “Snakes on a Plane” phenomenon you should google “Snakes on a Plane” and they’ll give you the goods as to why the flick is so absurd it’s brilliant, and why every frat boy in the United States loves it.

From wikipedia (you better believe it):

Snakes on a Plane became an Internet phenomenon soon after Josh Friedman’s blog entry and mentions on several Internet portals. The title inspired bloggers to create songs, apparel, poster art, pages of fan fiction, parody films, mock movie trailers and even short film parody competitions. Snakes on a Plane has also inspired the creation of graphics for fictional movies about other animals in odd settings, such as “Bears on a Submarine” and “Sharks on a Roller Coaster” (Tagline: You must be this tall…to DIE!).

Some fans have taken to attending the movie wearing black suits and afro wigs.

Snakes on a Plane was promoted highly on the Pod-cast Filmspotting, formerly known as Cinecast.

A viral video entitled “Snakes on a Plane Early Auditions” features comedian Dave Coyne doing impressions of actors Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson, Joe Pesci, and Robert De Niro, and muppet Beaker, doing casting auditions for the movie. The film has been featured on Digg, iFilm, and YouTube, and was included as enhanced content on the film’s soundtrack. Coyne’s voice acting talent can be heard in the audiobook dramatization of Snakes on a Plane.

In March of 2006, the Zebro comedy group produced the first ever Snakes on a Plane music video contest. Contestants were told to write and record original songs inspired by the movie and then make them into music videos. The top 3 videos were produced by Zebro itself, including the rap song “Snakes on an MP3″ which has been featured on Extra, MTV, CNN, and MSNBC after being put on YouTube. Another song entitled “100%: A Tribute to SoaP” is a claymation video dedicated to the film. The videos are in discussion to be put on the official DVD produced by Automat Pictures.

The August 16, 2006 installment of the anthology webcomic The Joy of Tech depicts a parody of the film named “Sapiens on a Planet”; specifically, it shows a movie theatre headlining this movie, in a world where the roles of people and snakes are reversed.

Many of the early false trailers and other viral videos circulated via YouTube, and captured media attention there, such as:

• Snakes on a Plane Rap

• Snakes Who Missed The Plane

• Snakes on a Plane Fake Trailer

• Snakes on a Plane: How Hollywood Really Works

• Former Fat Boys Song

• All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us

• Steaks on a Train

• Short film parodies

• SoaP videos from a music video contest

• Snake Eyes on a Plane - a parody movie poster contest

On July 6, 2006, the official Snakes on a Plane website started a promotional sweepstakes called the “The #1 Fan King Cobra Sweepstakes”. The contest makes innovative use of the publicity-generating potential of the Internet, requiring contestants to post links on forums, blogs, and websites and collecting votes from the users of those sites.

Recently, Varitalk has started an advertising campaign in which fans can send an amusing semi-personalized message in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson to telephone numbers of their choosing.

• Send a Samuel L. Jackson voice message about SoaP

• Listen to an mp3 of the Samuel Jackson SoaP voice message

In mid-July 2006, New Line Cinema revealed that it would not be showing any advance screenings for critics. Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com stated that “These kind of movies are marketing-driven, not critic-driven. So the only thing the critics could do is hurt it. And even if the reviews are good, they wouldn’t mean much.” The film debuted on August 18, 2006 with some late-night screenings on August 17, 2006. Despite the lack of advance screenings, the movie has garnered much publicity in various media.

During a July 21, 2006 panel discussion at the Comic-Con Convention in San Diego, California, a ten-minute clip from the film was shown to a crowd of more than 6,500 people. The panel included actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kenan Thompson, director David R. Ellis, and snake handler Jules Sylvester. Afterwards, fans were allowed to ask the panelists questions.

Print

Games Workshop has published the novelization of the film, written by Christina Faust. On June 13, 2006, comic book writer Chuck Dixon announced on his web site that he would be writing the comic book adaptation of Snakes on a Plane. DC Comics has since announced that their Wildstorm imprint will release a two issue miniseries on August 16, 2006 and August 30, 2006. In January 2006, Wired featured the film as “The best worst film of 2006″, based solely on the title and concept of the movie.

An illustrated book from Thunder’s Mouth Press, Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation by David Waldon details the internet phenomenon and was published July 28, 2006. Waldon details various viral videos relating to the SoaP craze, and interviewed their producers to find out what about the movie captured their attention.

Sterling Publishing released the tie-in sudoku book Snakes on a Sudoku on August 1, 2006. According to the book description, the puzzles are standard sudoku puzzles, but with the 3×3 blocks of numbers replaced with “deadly snakes” (actually, snake-shaped groups of squares).

Music and audio

On March 16, 2006, New Line Cinema publicly announced a contest on TagWorld and a website promoting the film.[15] The contest allowed artists on TagWorld to have their music featured on the movie. A flood of S.O.A.P themed songs by artists like Captain Ahab, Louden Swain, the Former Fat Boys, Nispy and others are now available because of the TagWorld contest. In addition, a music video for the film, released July 10, 2006 on MTV2’s Unleashed, has also generated publicity for the movie. The video is for the first song on the soundtrack CD, Cobra Starship’s “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)”. Additionally, the video appears during the beginning of the credits, after the movie.

In October of 2005, Nathanial Perry and Chris Rohan recorded an audio trailer spoof, which helped fuel the internet buzz. Perry and Rohan recorded the “motherfucking snakes” line in the audio trailer which was added to the film during the week of re-shoots. In July 2006, New Line Cinema signed a worldwide licensing agreement with the Cutting Corporation to produce an audiobook of the film.

The soundtrack is currently available for streaming in its entirety on MTV’s The Leak.

Television and video

Beginning in May 2006, episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its sister show The Colbert Report contained references to Snakes on a Plane’s title, popular one-liner, and general premise. Colbert accompanies the references with an imitation of Samuel L. Jackson saying “I am tired of these muthafuckin’ snakes on this muthafuckin’ plane!”. One notable example on The Daily Show occured just after the alleged terror plot in August 2006, which resulted in a large number of items being banned from airplanes in the UK and USA. This story was accompanied by the satirical tagline “Snakes not allowed on a plane”. On August 15, 2006, Samuel L. Jackson guest featured on The Daily Show, opening with his already very famous line. Keith Olbermann has featured stories about the movie and Internet buzz several times on his MSNBC news program Countdown. In addition, G4’s Attack of the Show features a semi-regular segment entitled “Snakes on a Plane: An Attack of the Show Investigation”, and even had a week dedicated to the movie which included interviews - including a conversation with Sunny Mabrey in a recreation of an airplane bathroom - and a day where hundreds of actual snakes were on set. Additionally, MTV Canada’s MTV Live has made sketches of an eager man waiting in line for months to see Snakes on a Plane first.

In June 2006, New Line Cinema commissioned famed UK audio-visual film remixers and chop-up artists Addictive TV to cut and sample Snakes on a Plane to create trailers for the US television networks.

Merchandising

Several independent T-shirt manufacturers have made T-shirts with graphics illustrating various humorous representations of the film. One, created by Jeffrey Rowland, depicts a frontal exterior view of a plane cockpit, with the pilot and copilot depicted as snakes. Another uses vintage road signs to formulate “Snakes + Plane = Snakes on a Plane“. A third showed a cartoon representation of Jackson’s Mace Windu character from the Star Wars series cutting down snakes with a lightsaber. It was pulled, presumably for copyright reasons.

A Snakes on a Plane t-shirt is also now available at Hot Topic retail stores. Samuel L. Jackson was dressed in the snahe only thing the critics could do is hurt it. And even if the reviews are good, they wouldn’t mean much.” The film debuted on August 18, 2006 with some late-night screenings on August 17, 2006. Despite the lack of advance screenings, the movie has garnered much publicity in various media.

During a July 21, 2006 panel discussion at the Comic-Con Convention in San Diego, California, a ten-minute clip from the film was shown to a crowd of more than 6,500 people. The panel included actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kenan Thompson, director David R. Ellis, and snake handler Jules Sylvester. Afterwards, fans were allowed to ask the panelists questions.

Merchandising

Several independent T-shirt manufacturers have made T-shirts with graphics illustrating various humorous representations of the film. One, created by Jeffrey Rowland, depicts a frontal exterior view of a plane cockpit, with the pilot and copilot depicted as snakes. Another uses vintage road signs to formulate “Snakes + Plane = Snakes on a Plane“. A third showed a cartoon representation of Jackson’s Mace Windu character from the Star Wars series cutting down snakes with a lightsaber. It was pulled, presumably for copyright reasons.

A Snakes on a Plane t-shirt is also now available at Hot Topic retail stores. Samuel L. Jackson was dressed in the snakes in cockpit fanshirt in the official music video Snakes on a Plane, though this is only readily obvious from still photos from the day of the shoot, and only a fraction of the shirt is visible in the video. The shirt he is wearing is from TopatoCo; it is unknown if he chose the shirt himself, or if someone working on wardrobe selected it. On the August 3, 2006 edition of TNA iMPACT!, wrestler Christian Cage was the latest person to sport the “road sign” t-shirt.

In a move which goes against usual movie merchandise practices, New Line Cinema partnered with CafePress.com to permit fans of Snakes on a Plane to become official licensees of Snakes on a Plane merchandise. This opened the door for millions to design and sell not only t-shirts, but other gift items such as mugs. Designers are restricted from using any copyrighted images or content created by New Line Cinema (e.g. images from the film), or images/depictions of the individual actors in the film. Fans have already responded by creating hundreds of designs including those using the full title of the film, something allowed by the New Line Cinema/CafePress partnership.

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