CON: Snakes on a Plane

July 27th 2006, 12:00am

NEW
LINE CINEMA PANEL:

Participants:

Host:
Kenan Thompson

Samuel L. Jackson

Director David R. Ellis

Snake-wrangler Jules Sylvester
Director James Wong
Ryan Merryman
Mary Elizabeth Winstead

The
New Line Cinema panel started off on a weak stab. The FINAL
DESTINATION 3 DVD was “ho-hum” in the sense that we
already knew about the “choose your own death” gimmick that the
DVD had to it, so there wasn’t really much else to report. Then, the
“Special Preview” of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE
BEGINNING got totally nixed out, nothing was shown and we were
told to “watch the trailer
online” instead. M’ooookay….BOOOOOO!

Thankfully,
hope kicked in the guise of a side-splitting clip from Jack
Black’s TENACIOUS D AND THE PICK OF DESTINY. Hilariously
introduced by Jack Black (JB that is) and Kyle Gass (Yup…KG) the
clip had me rolling in the aisles like a fruit roll-up in dire need
of a beating. Picture this:

Description
of the TENACIOUS clip:

Young
rock and roller Jack Black is oppressed by his religious father i.e.
Meat Loaf. Think the Twisted Sister video for “I wanna Rock”.
After a spat, all communicated through singing no less, the father
tears down all of Young Black’s Heavy Metal posters…all but
one….Ronnie James “Dream Evil” Dio.

Saddened,
Young Black sits on his bed pensive, until his Dio poster comes to
life with Ronnie singing loud and proud as to what the young buck
should do to get his life going. You haven’t lived until you’ve
seen a Dio poster come to life…TRUST ME! So Young Black grabs his
guitar, runs away from home and sets his sails to
Hollywood. He gets there as an adult…lol. Yup, he got lost
along the way!

Before
the clip was shown, Black said (via a recording): “This
movie will blow your nuts clean off right into your butt…and leave
them there”. And I now believe him. I never cared much for
Jack Black or Tenacious D, for that matter, but this bit SOLD ME. I
will see this movie! It opens on November 17, 2006.

SNAKES
ON A PLANE

Samuel L. Muthaf*cker Jackson

With
my spirits now lifted, New Line brought the happiness home with its SNAKES
ON A PLANE panel. All the stops were pulled! Snake-wrangler
Jules Sylvester kicked on stage with a myriad of snakes. It was fun
at first, but by snake number 4, I was like “Okay, I get it…you
have big snakes, can we move on?”

Thankfully,
once the snake display ended, director David R. Ellis and Samuel L.
Jackson took over the panel and it turned into “fun times”
at the outhouse. Jackson was “off” at first, but once he figured
out that all he needed to do was say bad words, he cussed like a
sailor on leave and had us all by the balls.

SNAKES
ON A PLANE is kind of a phenomenon in terms of how much the Internet
was responsible for its buzz and how far the interaction between
filmmakers and fans went. In honor of that, we were shown a reel of
“fanboy made” SNAKES ON A PLANE art/jokes, which brought the
point home even further.

Man,
did we ever hype this bitch up! If the suits on top were smart
though, they would’ve released the film this month, while
the hype has peaked, as opposed to August 18th, but that’s just my
two cents. Here’s a description of an 8-minute clip we saw and
some of the info I caught in the air.

Chilled director David R. Ellis

Description
of the SNAKES clip:

We’re
in the plane, no pilot in the seat and varied types of snakes are
attacking people left and right. Sometimes their real snakes, other
times their CGI snakes. Sometimes it cool, sometimes lame. Potent
boo scares kicked in, gnarly snakes POV shots surfaced, a huge snake
fell on the scene, Jackson beat the crap out of the varmints and
then had to go in the plane’s basement to do “something” or
find “something” (wasn’t clear to me). Then the clip ended.

CLICK
HERE TO WATCH THE ENTIRE PANEL
AT IGN.COM

I
personally can’t say that I was bowled over by the clip. It
didn’t wow me or make me laugh much (I chuckled a bit). Then
again, my good buddy JoBlo enjoyed it, so who knows? I’ll see the
whole film before passing judgment. On to the info!

Director
Ronny Yu was originally slated to direct Snakes on a Plane but
he dropped out for reasons unknown.
Samuel
L. Jackson was never in danger on set where his Agent imposed a
25 feet clause in his contract. Meaning the snakes always had to
be 25 feet away from Mr. Jackson. Pussy…just kidding : )
What
sold Jackson on the project was the title “Snakes on a
Plane”.
The
filmmakers kept close attention to what the fans were saying
online about the film and went back to incorporate many of the
fan demands into the film. Very cool! You see! We do make
a difference!
They
initially had 450 snakes on their plane set. By the end of the
shoot they had 500. Yup, the little buggers reproduced! A snake
orgy baby!
The
CG guys studied the snakes on set to better reproduce them on
their side.
In
Samuel Jackson’s humble and highly respected (by me anyways)
opinion, all snakes should die and burn in hell!