A couple weeks ago LiquidGeneration (okay, just Monkey) sat down with Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis to ask him all the questions people want to know about the upcoming movie: Are snakes just a metaphor for Muslim Terrorists? Why do black people seem to be more afraid of snakes? Would snakes have made Soul Plane a much better movie? What if the snakes were on crack? Why would you kill only ONE man with a plane full of snakes?
We also learn what he thinks about the internet's obsession with the movie, the hardest part of directing snakes, the recent reshoots that made the movie more R rated, and alternative titles for the movie.
The full transcript of this interview is below, but if you'd much rather see a shortened exchange of the interview on video, go here.
ALSO: DON'T MISS THIS: David R. Ellis was nice enough to DIRECT a fan film that we wrote and acted out. It's so hilariously stupid that you must watch it. To our knowlege it is the only Snakes on a Plane fan film directed by the director himself! Score 1 for LiquidGeneration!
LIQUIDGENERATION: I’m the Monkey, I’m here with David R. Ellis the director of Snakes on a Plane.
DAVID R. ELLIS: Hey, I’m the snake!
LG: He’s the snake! There you go!
DE: The Monkey, is that really your thing?
LG: That’s my thing.
DE: Cool.
LG: The monkey and the snake. Okay, let’s get right into it. I’m a studio executive - pitch me this movie.
DE: Ah, okay, this is really tough. There’s gonna be like, uh, snakes okay? And they’re gonna like, be on a plane. And Samuel L. Jackson is going to be there and save the day.
LG: Sold! Sold. All right, can you tell us the story about Samuel L. Jackson and changing the movie title?
DE: Oh yeah, well, we never were going to change the title. What we did was when we were going out to actors, a lot of them weren’t taking it seriously because it was called Snakes on a Plane. So, we uh, changed the title on the script, the working title, to Pacific Air 121 just so they’d at least read it, ya know? And then always knowing that we were going back to Snakes on a Plane.
LG: What do you think about the internet’s obsession with the movie?
DE: I think it’s awesome. I think its great, I mean, we couldn’t buy this kind of advertising. It’s been amazing so…keep doing it
LG: There were rumors about the studio execs wanting the internet thing to go away for a while or trying to push the release back, is that true?
DE: Well what they just don’t want us to peak too quick, ya know? And because the buzz is so great, it would be great if we could release the movie tomorrow, but it’s not ready yet. I mean, it’s done, but there’s a lot of visual effects we need to put in the movie. So, and we looked at moving it up against the big summer movies because we think it can really hold its own, but at the same time you’re only going to play for like, a weekend before another Poseidon or X-Men 3 or Superman or something. They come out almost every weekend, so it’s better to just go in August. It’s our job now, the internet had started it, to keep the buzz up and then um, just keep putting stuff out there every couple of weeks, you know, to try to keep the awareness going.
LG: What was the hardest part about directing Snakes?
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