SoaP Opera

“But it turned out when they said this movie was ‘shitty,’ they didn’t mean it ironically. They just thought it would be a piece of shit.”

-New Line marketing president Russell Swartz (from Dateline Hollywood)

Snakes on a Plane was marketed to be a crappy B movie, so crappy that it creates a following, so notorious that people would want to go to a movie theater, shell out some $s and see for themselves how crappy it could be. The very concept of the whole movie, from the crappy title to the crappy marketing strategy (or marketing strategy based on the crappiness of it all) ultimately did not spell out success in terms of revenues. If we were talking about fodder for sarcasm, then perhaps, the movie could be said to be a huge success.

Maybe the producers relied so much on the internet as a revolutionary form of media. The film itself created a strong following in terms of web content. Googling up “Snakes on a Plane” yielded 65,300,000 hits. Did the avant garde marketing successfully relegate “Snakes on a Plane” within the happy bounds of pop-culture? I guess so. But does that mean the New Line Cinema Executives can retire early and buy an island or two off the coast of Fiji? Hehe. I don't think so.

If you think about it, based on the premise of their marketing strategy, the ploy worked well, So well in fact, that maybe people started thinking that the movie was so crappy it wasn't worth spending $10 on. Looking at it another way, maybe it wouldn't have done so well were it not for the online publicity. In the end, what the producers achieved was just another topic for discussion. But then again, is it JUST another topic for discussion? Incorporating bloggers into their marketing strategy created an online macarena/ketchup song monster.

Look again at the figure above. 65 million hits!!! Try typing “Nacho Libre” in the search field and you'll get only 11 million results. Nacho Libre is a seriously funny movie, although it probably didn't gross as well as its producers hoped. What about “Austin Powers?” (who doesn't like Austin Powers?) Only 7.3 million hits.

Wow. That is brilliant marketing strategy. Perhaps if they venture into merchandise, they'd make a killing in sales.