People who were active on the Internet in 2006 have to remember the hype surrounding creature feature Snakes on a Plane. Before it was even released, it was all the web seemed to be talking about. The buzz was so large, it seemed like this film was going to be bigger than Star Wars. Ultimately, that was not the case and now the film is largely forgotten. However, many believe that Snakes on a Plane is essentially the first film to become a meme as we know it.
The Snakes on a Plane hype began with a very colorful blog post by screenwriter and blogger Josh Friedman who had been offered a chance to work on the script. It went viral, and the film was instantly meme-ified. Online content creators made parody songs, fan art, fanfiction, and films. A lot of these actually got mainstream media attention and were featured on shows like Good Morning America, and many websites and radio stations held contests based on this fan work. All of this was basically before New Line Cinema started heavily marketing the film, the Internet was doing all the work for them.
When the film's real marketing campaign actually began, they took full advantage of its Internet hype and used viral marketing, which was first popularized very successfully by The Blair Witch Project. They largely used their own website, which ran their own sweepstakes based on the fan creations, as well as a few TV spots, an online trailer, and a preview of the film at Comic-Con. All of this hype, all of this talk for the year leading up to its release, made it seem like this was going to be one of the biggest money-making films of all time. New Line Cinema even chose to do reshoots and give the film an R rating instead of the PG-13 they were slated to have, to keep up with the fan hypes and expectations.
In one of the more controversial moves surrounding the movie, Snakes on a Plane was almost not the title of the movie. It was nearly changed to something a lot more serious, streamlined, and generic. However, the studio chose to honor not only the Internet community that the film had created but Samuel L. Jackson, who chose to be in this movie because of its wacky title. Ultimately, the film wasn't as big of a success as they anticipated but it has maintained some cult status.
The plot itself is slightly more than the seemingly self-explanatory title, and is a little more thought out than the SyFy story one might think would come from a "meme movie." It revolves around a young man who has witnessed a brutal crime done by a mob boss. He's on his way to testify under the care of a charismatic agent played by Samuel L. Jackson, but their cover is blown and the mob has sabotaged their plane with deadly snakes who start attacking all of the passengers. The backstory isn't quite as important as one might want from a serious thriller film, but it's definitely not incompetent and there are some characters to root for here. The blend of some wackiness, combined with the plot, does make this film a fun and enjoyable watch.
It's hard to imagine what this film could have been like without the Internet hype. It's safe to assume that if they were going to an R rating from PG-13, a lot of the stuff that does make this movie wacky and fun would be gone. The snakes attacking a couple hooking up in the bathroom, biting them in some highly sensitive areas, would be gone. A lot of the deaths seen in the movie, that do play out kind of humorous because they're so outlandish, wouldn't be there.
The film is directed by David R. Ellis, who also did Final Destination 2, and the deaths in this movie absolutely show that. It also wouldn't have had probably the most infamous moment from this film that even people who haven't seen it can quote and parody. Jackson's iconic line, "I've had it with these motherf***ing snakes on this motherf***ing plane!"
Because Snakes on a Plane was the first "meme movie," people couldn't really gauge what it would look like to see Internet hype translate to real life. The financial performance of the film was, in a word, disappointing. It wasn't a complete flop, it doubled its budget, but it was expected to be this massive success and they had huge midnight premieres with a huge production around them and it just didn't do as well as people were predicting.
Nowadays, the film does still have a cult fanbase within the horror community and it is to this day parodied and quoted. It's surprising though, how many people can quote that famous line and make references but have yet to see the movie. It's one of those things that feels like a dream or a myth, or something people imagined. But it isn't. It's a very real production, and a very interesting part of history.