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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - August 18th

"SNAKES ON A PLANE" released today in 2006

It's rare that a movie already has a staggering online fan-base before it's release, even going so far as to solicit and use the feedback from online fans to include in the actual film, but such is the story of Snakes on a Plane! Starring the legendary Samuel L Jackson as FBI Agent Neville Flynn, who is assigned to protect the witness to a gangland killing, Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips), and escort him from Hawaii back to the mainland for the trial. However, the gangster in question, Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson) has one hell of a surprise waiting for them when they get in the air!

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After witnessing gangster Eddie Kim (Lawson) brutally beat a U.S. Prosecutor to death in Hawaii, surfer Sean Jones (Phillips) is placed under the protection of FBI Agents Neville Flynn (Jackson) and his partner John Sanders (Mark Houghton), who are to escort him to the mainland for Kim's murder trial. Unable to silence Jones while Flynn is around, Kim resorts to a last desperate act; Kim has his men smuggle a huge assortment of venomous snakes onboard the plane, and, to ensure the snakes attack the passengers without being provoked, he has one of his henchmen disguised as an airport ground employee spray the passengers' leis with a special pheromone which makes the snakes highly aggressive. Midway through the flight, the crates carrying thr snakes are released by a time-delayed lock, and the snakes start to make their way through the plane. The first to be attacked are a couple in the bathroom having sex. Then the plane's captain, Sam McKeon (Tom Butler), investigates and fixes an electrical short, but is killed by the viper that caused it. Co-pilot Rick (David Koechner), unaware of the snake, believes Sam has suffered a heart attack and continues toward LAX. When some of the snakes begin to attack Rick, he accidentally releases the oxygen masks in the passenger cabins trying to fight them - and releases a wave of rampaging snakes falling from the above ducts onto the passengers! Flynn quickly rallies the planes stewards - Claire Miller (Julianna Margulies), Tiffany (Sunny Mabrey), Grace (Lin Shaye), and Ken (Bruce James) - to move the passengers into the front of the plane and erect a makeshift barrier seperating them from the snakes. Flynn manages to contact his LA contact Special Agent Henry "Hank" Harris (Bobby Cannavale), who quickly drafts the services of ophiologist Dr. Steven Price (Todd Louiso). While Harris and Price track the source of the snakes on the ground (in the hope of securing enough anti-venom for all the passengers on the plane), Flynn desperately continues to try to save the passengers, especially Jones, from the rampaging reptiles!

Neville Flynn: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
[the terrified passengers on the plane turn to Neville]
Neville Flynn: I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE!

Top:   FBI Agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L Jackson) find himself protecting a witness on a plane 

full of venomous snakes!;

Above:   Sean (Nathan Phillips) saves stewardess Tiffany (Sunny Mabrey).

David Dalessandro, a University of Pittsburgh administrator and first-time Hollywood writer, first developed the concept in 1992 after reading a nature magazine article about Indonesian brown tree snakes climbing onto planes in cargo during World War II. He originally wrote the screenplay about the brown tree snake loose on a plane, titling the film Venom. He later revised the idea to include more and more assortment of venomous snakes, crediting Aliens as his inspiration. Dalessandro's third draft of Venom was turned down by more than 30 Hollywood studios, until in 1999 a producer for MTV/Paramount showed interest in the script, followed up by New Line Studios, which took over the rights for production. New Line hired Freddy vs Jason (2003) director Ronny Yu to direct the project, when Samuel L Jackson (who previously worked with Yu on The 51st State), learned about the announced project in the Hollywood trade newspapers and, after talking to Yu, agreed to sign on without reading the script based on the director, storyline, and the title. Contrary to popular belief, it was in fact Jackson's agent that insisted that the title be changed, because Jackson "couldn't" work on a film with such a title. When Jackson heard about all of this he responded with the much cited comment, "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title!"

The film's B movie-esque title generated a lot of pre-release interest on the Internet. Much of the initial publicity came from a blog entry made by screenwriter Josh Friedman, who had been offered a chance to work on the script, and the casting of Samuel L. Jackson only further increased anticipation. Ronny Yu however would later bow out of the project following budget disputes and "creative differences", and was replaced by Final Destination 2 director, David R. Ellis. The initial script for the film was 122 pages long when Ellis signed on to direct the film and reworked the script along, with producer Don Granger, screenwriters David J. Taylor and John Heffernan, and star Jackson, for more than four months until the script was narrowed down to a more manageable 103 pages. Meanwhile, the title inspired bloggers to create songs, apparel, poster art, pages of fan fiction, parody films, mock movie trailers, and short film parody competitions. Many of the early fan-made trailers circulated via YouTube, and captured media attention there with such titles as: Cats on a Plane, Snakes Who Missed the Plane, All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us, Steaks on a Train, and Badgers on a Plane (a spoof of "Badger Badger Badger").

Neville Flynn: Hey, hey, hey, we have to figure something out.
Rick: All right. Well, I know what I gotta do. We're in a 200-foot aluminum tube and we're 30,000 feet in the air. And any one of those slimy little pieces of shit can trip a circuit or a relay or a hydraulic and this bird goes down faster than a Thai hooker. So my job is to keep LAX informed on how totally screwed we are, and then find some way to keep this mother in the sky another two hours. Figure that out.

Top:   The snakes first victims; Kyle and Kelly (played by Taylor Kitsch and Samantha McLeod)

are killed while joining the "mile-high club";

Above:   The rampaging snakes take over the plane!

Filming in mid 2005 under a fake working title of Anaconda 3, the production ending up using over 450 live snakes, including a 22-foot long Burmese python, nicknamed Kitty by the crew.  During filming, Jackson did not come into direct contact with any live snakes, due to a contract clause preventing snakes from being within 8 m (25 ft) of the actor. In the end however, most snakes needed to be digitally created because the real snakes did not move as much as the filmmakers wanted. Taking advantage of the Internet buzz for what had been a minor film in their 2006 line-up, New Line Cinema ordered five days of additional shooting in early March 2006. While re-shoots normally imply problems with a film, the producers opted to add new scenes to the film to change the MPAA rating from PG-13 to R and bring it in line with growing fan expectations. The most notable addition was a revision of a catchphrase from the film that was parodied on the Internet by fans of the film, capitalizing on Jackson's typically foul-mouthed and violent film persona: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!". Subsequently, the public responded favorably to this creative change and marketing strategy, leading some members of the press to speculate that "the movie has grown from something of a joke into a phenomenon".

With such intense Internet interest in the movie, many industry pundits predicted that Snakes on a Plane would gross $20-30 million in it's opening weekend. Already mockbuster studio The Ayslum had released a z-grade supernatural horror rip off entitled Snakes on a Train just three days before the theatrical release, meant to exploit the the attention from the film. Unfortunately when the film opened in over 3,500 theaters across the US, Snakes on a Plane managed to gross only $15.25 million in its opening days, falling to $6.4 million in it's second weekend, ultimately grossing a worldwide box office of a little over $60 million. While by most standards, Snakes on a Plane garnered a healthy profit against a $33 million budget, the film was considered a box office disappointment by then New Line Cinema head, Robert Shaye, stating the film was a "dud" despite "higher expectations".

TRIVIA:   The different species include a 19-foot Burmese python named Kitty (which the crew called Kong for film purposes), a scarlet kingsnake (the non-venomous double for the coral snake), a milk snake to fill in for the Taipan (which attacks the couple having sex), corn snakes, rattlesnakes, and mangrove snakes.

Top:   Crew prepare to shoot a scene with the star python, "Kitty";

Above:   Samuel L Jackson with director David R Ellis

Critics however embraced the film's novelty, with mostly positive reviews. The Arizona Republic's Randy Cordova gave Snakes on a Plane a positive review, calling the film "... an exploitation flick that knows what it wants to do, and it gets the job done expertly." and a "... Mecca for B-movie lovers."  Boston Globe reviewer Ty Burr reacted to Samuel L. Jackson's performance by saying he "... bestrides this film with the authority of someone who knows the value of honest bilge. He's as much the auteur of this baby as the director and screenwriters, and that fierce glimmer in his eye is partly joy." On the other hand, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying that "after all the Internet hype about those motherfuckin' snakes on that motherfuckin' plane, the flick itself is a murky stew of shock effects repeated so often that the suspense quickly droops along with your eyelids." Film critic and radio host Michael Medved criticized New Line Cinema for agreeing to re-shoot scenes so that the film would receive an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America to match fan expectations. He argued that the film would have grossed more revenue at the box office with a PG-13 rating, stating that the demographic most likely to be drawn to a movie titled Snakes on a Plane is males between the ages of 12 and 15. "My fourteen-year-old son, Danny, for instance, felt a powerful inclination to go out and see the movie with his two sleep-over friends this Sunday night," he explained, "but I wouldn't permit it. It's rated R for good reason." Though even Medved would grudgingly give Snakes on a Plane 2 1/2 stars out of 4 for his radio review of the film.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   68%