the viral marketing of “snakes on a plane”

You’ve probably heard about it elsewhere by now, but Samuel L. Jackson has a film that’s supposed to be coming out this August called “Snakes on a Plane.” (According to one of the many rumors that I’ve heard about this film, the producers tried to change the name to “Flight 121,” but Jackson demanded they keep using the title they shot it under, “Snakes on a Plane.” According to him, the name is the only reason he took the job.) If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you should really check it out — lots of cheesy shots of people reaching up from their airplane seats to grab oxygen masks, only to find poorly done computer-generated snakes dangling there instead. It’s so laughably bad, in fact, that most people seem to think it’s an elaborate inside joke. I’ve been assured, however, that it’s not.

The Internet Movie Database summarizes the plot this way:

On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who’s a witness in protective custody, lets loose a crate full of deadly snakes.

The thing that I find most cool about this, however, isn’t the ridiculousness of the plot, or the promise of hearing Samuel Jackson yelling about “motherfucking snakes.” It’s the fact that fans of shitty movies, in anticipation of what they’re hoping might be the worst film ever, have begun jumping onboard and contributing what they can to the creative effort. Several people have already launched websites (like Snakes on a Blog dotcom), designed promotional materials, and created merchandise. The thing that really excites me are the t–shirts. If I had more time, this is one bandwagon I’d definitely consider jumping on.

Sure, the film will suck (truly bad movies, I don’t think can be purposely made, so I suspect this one will suck more like “Anaconda” than “Showgirls”), but the fact that a fan base is growing aned getting engaged like this before it’s even been screened for critics is incredible. (My guess, for what it’s worth, is that Jackson took the job knowing that it would suck, but that the producers were late coming to that realization. Now that they have, it looks as though they’re going with it. Word is that they’ve even added sex and violence scenes recently to so that the film could get an R rating instead of a PG-13. They know it’s garbage and they’re encouraging us to see it that way.)