"Snakes" Not So Boffo At The Box Office....
Estimates are only $13.8 million for the weekend, $15.2 million counting Thursday night.
Not terrible, but disappointing, and lower than most predictions.
I wasn't really tempted to see it. In fact, the other night, I closed my eyes for a minute, and thought about the previews, and about what I'd heard about snakes attacking penises, and vaginas, and crawling up a fat woman's butt, and I decided that I could pretty much imagine the whole film. So I did, in about 22 seconds. Saved myself $10.
Sadly, "Alligators in a Helicopter - The Movie" is destined to go into drydock, one of the great unmade movies in history, right up there with "Freddy Got Fingered Again", "Bubble Man", and Episodes I-III of the Star Wars saga. Wait, the last ones got made? Cool.
Ultimately, the fact that "Little Miss Sunshine" is likely going to make more money overall at the U.S. box office than "Snakes on a Plane" can only be seen as a good thing.
posted by Scott the Reader @ 12:01 PM
11 Comments:
This goes to show that just because people make a big deal about something on the internet doesn't mean it's a big deal off the internet.
Speaking of which, I saw LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE last night and loved it. One of the most moving films I've seen in a while and brilliantly funny, too.
Though, to their discredit, they didn't have a cool marketing campaign wherein little Abby Breslin calls you up and threatens you if you don't see the movie...
From what I have heard, Snakes on a Plane is a poor movie, but a fantastic movie experience. Several friends who saw it independantly have all commented on how much better the crowd made the movie, because everyone there was on the same wavelength.
I think creating that sort of movie experience is something that really needs to be improved for the future, especially in this day and age of home theatre, and dvds, where actually going to see something on the big screen just isn't that special anymore.
Bubble Boy was one of the best road movies made since Cannonball Run. No lies. It rocks.
Also, many people who really know how to use the internet feel no shame in seeing the movie for free.
I saw it on Saturday and you know what? I thought it was great. The CGI snakes were pathetic and the acting (except for Jackson) was lousy, but man, that was one scary movie. I know I might be alone in this but I think it shows that it takes a lot to ruin a great script.
Regardless of how good Little Miss Sunshine is, it's not a be-all/end-all movie. It fill a niche, just like Snakes does.
I don't watch the majority of horror films, but, really, what is the equivalent of Little Miss Sunshine? The Exorcist? One of the Freddy or Jason movies? I figure Snakes isn't at the top of that pile, but it's more in the vein of the Evil Dead flicks than the slasher side.
I don't believe for a minute if every move that came out was as "good" as Sunshine or any of the other indie or big production "emotional moving" films that attendance would pick up. We, as a people, need the fluff pieces, the rollercoaster pieces to entertain.
If every movie experience was a cathartic one, then you wouldn't want or need to go as often.
My point is that I want Hollywood to be encouraged to back the small character-driven comedies as a viable genre, and not just feel they have to go for Snakes on a Plane or Die Hard at a Monster Truck Show all the time.
I LOVE that "SNAKES" has no bite!!!!!
Fuck Hollywood and their ridiculous attempts to outsmart the audience. The whole internet buzz thing was hatched by the studio's marketing dept. to manufacture hype artificially. AND IT FAILED! Then they didn't screen it for critics. AND THAT FAILED!! HA! LOVE IT! The not-so-old adage still holds. Nobody Knows Nothin'. Thanks, Bill Goldman.
So...I actually did see SoaP. My friends were going, so if I wanted to hang out with them it would require seeing a movie I feared would be catastrophically bad like Ultraviolet (please God, give me back my two damn hours of life!). It wasn't.
In fact, I was pretty entertained. It wasn't particularly intelligent, but at least I never felt like they were shitting down my throat. They went to great lengths to dot their i's and cross their t's, even though it was just a "stupid" action/horror movie. It really should've made more than it did--given the actual fun factor of the movie--but the trailers just made it look outright stupid/cheesy/lame, etc.
Which is not to say it didn't have it's cheesy/lame moments, but they were FAR fewer in-between then I expected.
All in all, I didn't feel bad paying for it. So I humbly retract the majority of my dissing comments earlier.
*shaking head* I'm not sure how they kept it from insulting my intelligence...because, thinking back, there was a lot of stuff that, if played differently, could've really come off lame.
Bland ending makes the film "just okay" in word of mouth.
Villain who put the snakes on the plane? Still alive at the end.
Snakes on the plane? No real battle to remove them, and SLJ performs an action that *eventually* results in the snakes removal - but it wasn't "hands on" and the snakes don't die as a direct result of SLJ's action. In fact, we never see them die - they may still be alive!
Kind of a let down.
- Bill
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