DVD Talk Forum - Snakes on a Plane box office predictions

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2135&p=.htm

Quote:

'Snakes' All Hiss and No Bite
by Brandon Gray
August 20, 2006

The title said it all, and the movie itself was an afterthought. Months of media and Internet coverage over the bluntly descriptive yet ridiculous name, Snakes on a Plane, turned out to be nothing but hype, and the picture remained what it always was: an average horror genre picture for August.

Slinking onto 4,900 screens at 3,555 theaters, Snakes on a Plane snared an estimated $13.9 million over the weekend. The opening was a bit higher than Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid's $12.8 million in August 2004, but below Red Eye, another plane-based thriller that made $16.2 million on the same weekend last year.

From Thursday night previews starting at 10 p.m., Snakes on a Plane grossed an estimated $1.4 million, bringing its total to $15.3 million. The figure isn't counted towards the weekend, which is technically Friday to Sunday. By that measure, estimates have Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby on top for the third weekend in a row with $14.1 million, but the two pictures are close enough that Snakes could wind up ahead when actual grosses are tallied on Monday. Cooling a modest 36 percent, the NASCAR comedy has racked up in $114.7 million in 17 days.

Horror and comedy has a history of not mixing well at the box office, and the pictures that self-consciously push the "so bad it's good" angle routinely fail, typified by past flops Slither and Eight Legged Freaks. With an above average opening for a horror comedy, Snakes on a Plane can claim some success, and distributor New Line Cinema professed a relatively modest production in the low $30 million range.

New Line, which previously had an August hit with tongue-in-cheek horror Freddy vs. Jason, had hoped for more after Internet jokes on the title gained constant free publicity in the mainstream media.

"With all the expectations, you have to say we would be disappointed," said David Tuckerman, New Line's president of distribution. "But Snakes on a Plane did what tracking said it would, and it basically performed like a regular horror movie. When it was green-lighted, it didn't have all this hype with it. It was a regular movie that was going to do 35 or 40 million bucks." Tuckerman noted that Snakes was predictably driven by males under 25 years old.

The goal of Snakes on a Plane was to combine common fears in one movie, namely aviophobia (fear of flying) and ophidophobia (fear of snakes) as one trailer spelled out, but, lacking story and context, the premise's contrivance upped the absurdity. A humorous horror like Arachnophobia can work if the situation has some reality and characters to care about. Snakes only had Samuel L. Jackson, who found a much larger audience with his previous creature feature, Deep Blue Sea, a shark horror that toyed with genre conventions but was first and foremost a scary thriller.

The first Anaconda remains the high water mark for snake movies. Its $16.6 million start in 1997 would translate to $24 million today, adjusted for ticket price inflation.