Samuel L Jackson indulges a "love of exploitative trash" in Snakes On A Plane (you know the plot.) Months before its release, this unabashed serving of cheesy popcorn generated huge internet buzz and slithered straight to No.1 in the US and UK. Sadly, it just as quickly crashed out of cinemas with a paltry $33m (£16.8m). Frankly, they could've made more money skinning the snakes and flogging the strips to Jimmy Choo.
Slip And Slide
"Most people don't like flying, most people don't like snakes," Sam Jackson bluntly explains in a hype-heavy Making Of featurette. "It's a roller coaster ride!" raves producer Craig Berenson, but he's not just spouting clichés. Cameras chase cast and crew around a two-storey airplane set mounted on constantly moving hydraulics. This threatened to have Julianna Margulies vomiting on her slithery co-stars and b-roll footage captures them fleeing for cover.
Hollywood snake wrangler Jules Sylvester reveals the dos-and-don'ts of working with invertebrates (and we don't just mean the studio execs) in a separate featurette. "There's no training involved," he says (which is a bit worrying). Instead, he explains, he had to learn from experience never to poke a snake with a stick (no flies on him then...). Of course, there's only so much gentle cajoling you can do to get a snake to wriggle around to your way of thinking, so when the stunts got hairy, CGI was employed. In a five-minute featurette, the VFX bods strip away the layers of fake snakeskin to reveal the binary mechanics beneath.
And talking of creatures that like to tuck themselves away in small dark places, the final featurette hears from the bloggers who created the Snakes internet phenomenon. Hollywood screenwriter Sebastien Guttierez is among them, which perhaps explains why Gothika felt like it was cobbled together in five minutes. The homemade Snakes trailers crafted by the web monkeys are far more entertaining, and it's a shame we don't get to see them fully showcased.
Celebrity Hissy Fit
Ten deleted scenes basically comprise all the boring bits between salacious snake attacks. That is except for an extended - and frankly unnecessary - version of the scene where the frumpy Mrs Bova (Ann Warn Pegg) gets a naughty but nice surprise popping up in her lap (enough said). In an optional commentary, director David R Ellis reveals that snakes weren't the only unpredictable animals he had to contend with. Apparently, Romeo the Chihuahua was so disillusioned with the Hollywood merry-go-round that he ran away. The gag reel backs up reports of his sullen, Val Kilmer-like behaviour, as Ellis is seen to beg the dog in futility, "Speak, Romeo! Speak!"
For the main commentary Ellis is joined by SLJ and key crewmembers. Jackson reveals that he hotly pursued a role while the script was in its roughest stages. Even producer Craig Berenson confesses to being shocked by his enthusiasm. Meanwhile, you may be surprised to hear the script spent nine years in development (no, really). Between the edifying bits, there's also a lot of sly innuendo, ie Ellis claims that Jules Sylvester "loved taking the girls to the snake room," at which point, a certain Mr Jackson interjects with a naff snake-as-male-member gag. Very clever, but that about sets the tone for this DVD. Mildly hissterical.
EXTRA FEATURES
Snakes On A Plane DVD is released on 26th December 2006.
