Snakes on a Plane for Dummies

Is there any possible chance that Snakes on A Plane will even come close to living up to its hype? Does it even matter at this point? No and No. I don’t know how all the hype started for this movie, but if it was Brian Finkelstein from Snakes on a Blog, he is an absolute marketing genius. Check out some of the statistics from the blogosphere for this movie, thanks to customer evangelists for this. And now Tara Hunt is organizing a flashgroup to share SMS messages on the release date of the movie.

Most of the bloggers out there such as Tara Hunt simply mention the name of the movie, and everyone keels over in fits of laughter and says – “Oh my god, I have to see that”. I was witness to this at the Mesh conference earlier this year. However, everyone who isn’t laughing thinks they just don’t get it and are afraid to ask WHY is this movie such a must see and so popular? Well not me:

Is it the title? Yes, “Snakes on a Plane” is a pretty cool title, and brings up some remarkably ridiculous images in your head, but a title alone cannot possibly start this hype.

Is it the plot? Somehow I don’t think movies such as “Snakes Slither the Sky Train” , “Snakes in the Plus-15“, and “Snakes Snarl the TTC” will make it into theatres any time soon.

Is it the cast? Don’t get me wrong, I love Samuel Jackson as much as the next guy, but he’s had plenty of flops.

Is it because the level of how bad this movie really could be is off the charts? I suspect this is a big part of it. It must be a perfect storm of all these things, and of course a little luck.

The hype behind this movie is by far the best solution to Mark Cuban’s open problem for fixing the movie business. The only kicker is that no one knows how to re-package this marketing plan for their own good. It’s not for a lack of trying. As Cuban mentioned in point #2, every movie now has a website and are all desperately vying for more traffic.

My prediction is that this movie will really suck, which is of course what everyone is expecting. Now the thing is, what happens if the movie not only sucks, but is just plain boring and lame? Do you think there will be a negative backlash from the blogging community, or will the hype just fizzle out, never to be talked about again? I guess that is the beauty of hyping something months, or even years before it actually comes out. Have I mentioned yet how great FreshBooks new timesheet service (aka Snakes on a Timetrack) is going to be?