Hype from a Blog: the Snakes on a Plane Story
[Warning: some of the links embedded in this post are rated PG-13 for language.]
What kind of blog would The MoPR Blog be if we did not have at least one post about Snakes on a Plane (aka SoaP).
If you’re not familiar with the movie Snakes on a Plane (see the trailer), it’s about a plane. And there are snakes on it. It also stars Samuel L. Jackson (not in this picture). I don’t think I’m giving too much of the plot away if I say that Samuel L. Jackson probably kills a few of the snakes (that are on a plane).
Why is the movie Snakes on a Plane featured in The MoPR Blog? Because the back story of this movie is the PR person’s dream about the impact of blogs, social networking and the Internet for a product launch.
The movie, in theaters August 18, had a troubled marketing life and might have ended up being a complete theatrical disaster. But thanks to the blogosphere, Snakes on a Plane might end up being a surprise hit film of the summer season.
The script was given the working title Snakes on a Plane. That title captured the interest of Samuel L. Jackson who agreed to star in the film based on that title alone. But then the studio, New Line Cinema, changed the name of the project to Pacific Flight 121. To quote Jackson, “Give me a break.”
The next problem was the film garnered a PG-13 rating, which actually is a bad thing for an action thriller. The studio wanted an R rating. The movie seemed doomed.
Or did it?
About a year ago word got out that Samuel L. Jackson was committing career suicide by signing up to do a movie with the laughingly simple title Snakes on a Plane (a title that later became a Hollywood joke: “So-and-so can’t get a movie made, but New Line is making Snakes on a Plane”; “they’re already in preproduction for the sequel, Snakes on a Train”; “it’s a trilogy, the next movie is Snakes on a Submarine”).
Word spread, as word often does, to the Internet. Suddenly, it seems, the movie was a blogging “phenomenon.” Bloggers began to refer to this phenomenon as a “meme.” Culturally, memes are things like tunes, catch phrases or fashion that propagates from one person to another until it has completely caught on within the pop culture. Lance Armstrong’s yellow “Livestrong” bracelet is a meme.
The blogging about Snakes on a Plane caught the attention of the press. The reporting on the blogging caught the attention of the producers. The producers started paying attention to what people in the blogosphere were saying. They changed the name back to Snakes on a Plane. Using ideas from bloggers, the studio shot an additional 15 minutes and now seems headed for an R rating.
The sustained buzz lasting for far longer than six months seems “unprecedented”, and many movie pundits are saying the bloggers should be given credit for giving a film — that will likely be critically panned — cult status before it even hits the screen.
The blogosphere has created its own (unsanctioned) marketing campaign with movie art and movie gear. The movie already has its own Wikipedia entry. In part to show gratitude to the Internet community for this buzz, New Line Cinemas released the first movie trailer via Yahoo! before any other advertising began.
Let’s not forget the buzz about the buzz. There are now blogs reporting on the press’ reporting on the blogs reporting on the movie! One fascinating aspect about the coverage is how words like “unprecedented” and “phenomenon” are used in news articles about the blogs.
While I fully recognize the importance blogs played in the back story of this movie, I would hardly call the blogging unprecedented nor do I find anything phenomenal about it.
For example, a Google search of “Snakes on a Plane” (in quotes) returns a very respectable 5,080,000 results, but a Google search of “Nacho Libre” returns 31,900,000 results. A Feedster search of blog posts for “Snakes on a Plane” returns 6,164 results while returning 19,508 for “Nacho Libre” (these statistics don’t measure the traffic to these various websites, but one might imagine they are on par). If some of the conclusions in the reporting holds, Nacho Libre should sell between three and six times more tickets than Snakes on a Plane.
Lets not forget the first movie to become an actual Internet phenom: The Blair Witch Project. In 1999, before there was a blogosphere, a $25,000 horror movie shot like a documentary was marketed almost exclusively via the World Wide Web until it could find a major distributor. Many people who saw the movie read the story on the Blair Witch Project website and went to the theaters thinking they were really watching the recovered video footage from three lost student filmmakers. The movie grossed over $248 million. Now that is unprecedented!
But it is precisely because such buzz has its own momentum that I find this story so fascinating and why I believe this is a PR person’s dream story. The lesson: The Internet and the blogosphere within it must play an important role for all product and service launches to be successful.
I am going to see Snakes on a Plane (and for the purpose of full disclosure, I’m going to see Nacho Libre too). And I also signed the petition to let the owner and webmaster of snakesonablog.com attend the movie’s premiere!
The MoPR team would love to hear your thoughts on Snakes on a Plane in the blogosphere as well. Share your thoughts today…
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