Snakes on a Plane. What a fantastic title for a movie. Surprisingly, this movie did not live up to studio expectations its first weekend in the box office. It pulled in about $15 million and it was produced for approximately $30 million. That is not bad, but what did the marketing for the film cost. Advertising and creating buzz usually will cost millions, and I'm sure that New Line Cinema spent millions promoting the movie.

But, in addition, this movie generated a ridiculously high amount of internet buzz. As soon as the title and some details of the film were released, bloggers picked up the topic and ran with it. There was so much talk about this movie, its campy horror-movie style, and of course, the descriptive title. I heard about this movie maybe thirty times and had a good sense about it, without having ever seen a television advertisement. Bloggers were so opinionated and vocal about the movie that filmmakers even went back and made some changes to the movie that reflected popular opinion, supposedly adding more gratuitous sex scenes and more violence. I even heard that there was a late script change for Samuel L. Jackson's character, which was the addition of a very colorful line--delivered with classic Sam Jackson swagger--about him being tired of certain snakes on a certain airplane.

The film will probably end up making money, because it has already attained a kind of cult status and so many people have heard of it. I probably will see this movie, not because I think it will be good, but because I have heard so much talk about it. The title in imprinted on my brain.

However, it if does not do well, perhaps one of the reasons is that the title basically tells the entire story. It's right there. Snakes. On a plane. Samuel L. Jackson. That's the story. Enough said.

Another reason is that a lot of people are scared of snakes and may be reluctant to pay 10 bucks to see snakes slithering around on a 30 foot screen.

The last reason--and this one I think has some merit--is that the filmmakers brought fans too close to the filmmaking process. They broke down the "fourth-wall," as they say, by letting future audience members have some input. Although mininal, it was still input. Maybe fans, knowing what to expect out of the movie, and maybe expecting a not-so-hot story that actually used their input to try to make it better, just ended up staying at home blogging about the next campy-titled movie.