Of course, there is a truth here, Snakes on a Plane cost half as much as WTC to make, and was never really designed for the theatrical market. A movie like this is basically glorified STV fare, and one must imagine it will do excellently there. WTC will do well on rentals, but Snakes on a Plane will do amazing on sales at the video level. Even the most recent American Pie sequel, STV, sold over a million copies, and the rental is huge. WTC will have a good rental, and decent television run. Snakes on a Plane will have huge rental and huge long lasting television run, TNT will still be showing it in 10 years with good ratings. One film is focusing on an older one time viewing market, it's a hard market to get into theaters and WTC has done very well at it. The other appeals to a younger, watch it until you puke audience. Was SoaP anemic? A little harsh. Considering it's only on
the first lap of it's race. Something tells me it's got a long STV franchinse ahead of it, New Line is very likely to milk this for years to come. Afterall, it opened better than their franchise Final Destination, and it's had two theatrical sequels. RonDavid Kusumoto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ** I was always skeptical a film like this would open with monster numbers. Forget about the Internet blog hype. Its premise suggested it could be afflicted with the "Arachnophobia" syndrome at the box office, e.g., a movie of greater interest to GUYS, but NOT to most women, with a gross-out factor that skews different than for even couples who are inclined to chase the horror genre.** You could canvas 10 of your relatives and friends to get a good idea as to who would be inclined to PAY to see this. Opening
at $15 mil. ensures "Snakes" will pull in numbers that are lower next week. Even if the film was across-the-board-critically acclaimed, there was no getting around the "ick" factor with general audiences.** Similarly, look at Oliver Stone's "WTC." It's putting up good numbers and despite my mixed feelings about it, people are not inclined to PAY to see a film like this when there's a choice between it and "Talladega" for a fun time out. "WTC" -- even if it had been as partisan as Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" -- tests an audiences endurance to pain, no matter how good it is, no matter how good you feel when you walk out.-koose.=="Snakes on a Plane" fails to charmSunday, Aug 20, 2:19 PM (ET)By Dean GoodmanLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - So much for the Internet hype. "Snakes on a Plane," a camp thriller that generated an unprecedented tsunami of online hysteria during the past
year, crawled into the No. 1 slot at the North American weekend box office with estimated ticket sales of just $15.3 million, its distributor said on Sunday.New Line Cinema had hoped the movie would open in the low-$20 million range, a spokeswoman said. While the Time Warner Inc.-owned studio was disappointed, she said the film would be profitable. Hailed by celluloid cognoscenti as being so bad that it's good, "Snakes" cost about $30 million to make, a relatively modest sum.The sales figure covers actual data from Friday and Saturday, as well as an estimate for Sunday. It also includes $1.4 million from Thursday-evening screenings.Samuel L. Jackson plays an FBI agent trying to regain control of a plane that the Mafia had filled with poisonous snakes in order to kill a protected witness. The only problem was that the title so handily summed up the film's plot that there was little incentive to see it, said
Brandon Gray, an analyst at boxofficemojo.com."This tells you that you need to have a compelling story or premise to get an audience for your movie," he said.Senior New Line executives were not available for comment.The project had been in development since 1999, going through several studios, rewrites and directors. It became a cause celebre last year when Jackson publicly assailed New Line for changing the title to the nebulous "Pacific Air 121."The studio backed down, empowering Jackson and adoring online fans to complain that the film was not violent enough. Scenes were added ratcheting up the gruesome quotient. The bloggers' victory ensured plenty of media coverage, seemingly turning the little B-movie into a preordained must-see hit.But filmmaking-by-Internet committee has its limits. Industry surveys in recent weeks indicated only modest interest among the moviegoing masses. New Line
found itself both playing up the film's unusual backstory and playing down its sales expectations. It did not screen the movie in advance for critics, a common tactic when a studio fears the reviews will be less than complimentary.The box-office champion for the previous two weekends, "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," slipped to No. 2 with $14.1 million. The total for Sony Corp.'s Will Ferrell NASCAR comedy rose to $114.7 million.Director Oliver Stone's September 11 drama "World Trade Center" held steady at No. 3 in its second weekend with $
