Once again, Hollywood's cup of crap runneth over (via Dark Horizons):
Ronny Yu is on board to direct the thriller "Snakes on a Plane" for New Line Cinema. Don Granger is producing. "Snakes" centers on a ruthless assassin who unleashes a crate full of lethal snakes aboard a packed passenger jet over the Pacific Ocean in order to eliminate a witness in protective custody. The rookie pilot and frightened passengers must band together to survive.
This is simply a "reimagining" of the 1974 TV-movie Fer-de-Lance, starring David Janssen. But oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that pitch meeting between the screenwriter (SW) and the producers (P1-3) for this one:
SW: It's like...Anaconda on a plane!
P1: I like it! It's edgy.
P2: And anacondas are the perfect killing machine, as Jon Voigt once said.
P3: Aren't anacondas kind of...big? How does he smuggle them on?
SW: Er, what I meant was, it's like Anaconda on a plane, only we'll use venomous snakes instead of constrictors.
P1: I like it!
P2: Asps. Very dangerous.
P3: Isn't it illegal to transport dangerous animals on a commercial flight?
SW: It could be.
P3: So...he smuggles them on?
SW: That's right.
P3: But not in his carry-on, obviously. And since they're illegal, he couldn't just stick them in the pet area. So that just leaves the cargo hold.
SW: Bingo.
P3: Which isn't pressurized.
SW: ...
P3 Which means they'd have no air. And would die.
SW: Look, they're in a sealed container with its own self-contained oxygen supply and a bunch of mice, and the container is disguised to look like a defibrillator so no one suspects a thing. Then the assassin fakes a heart attack so they have to bring the defibrillator up top and...blammo! It'll be big. Like, Baby Geniuses big.
P3: Why don't they just use the airplane defibrillator?
SW: What?
P3: Airplanes have a defibrillator in the fore cabin in case, you know, someone has a heart attack.
SW: Oh, well, the assassin disarms it.
P3: But...
SW: He's an expert at sabotage as well as a noted herpetologist.
P1: I love it!
P2: Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?
Ronny Yu cut his teeth directing Hong Kong actioners before making such classics as Warriors of Virtue - America's first look through the looking glass at the world of kanga-fu - Bride of Chucky, and Freddy vs. Jason, which I still haven't seen. Given FvsJ's decent box office, I have a hard time believing this was Yu's first choice for a follow-up.
But really...snakes? This is the best a supposedly "ruthless" assassin can come up with? How about a contact poison? Fishing test garrote? Spud gun? Why not wait until the target goes back to use the bathroom, then ambush him in the galley?
I also can't believe they'll stick with the title "Snakes on a Plane." Make a little effort, for crying out loud:
The Serpent and the Rotational Axis
Memphis Bushmaster
The Snake (Cock)Pit
Hangar of the White Worm
The Cobra: Airport 2004
Big Mamba's House
Flight of the Lancehead
Plains, Trains, and Acanthophis
See, it's not hard. Now you try.
Sorry, you won't be able to sell any scripts featuring lawyers in this market.
Unless they're getting eaten by dinosaurs.
Okay, what if the tax attorney is white (shocking!) and raps at the end? Think of the cross-cultural appeal!
C'mon, Denny, we don't want to give the dinosaurs indigestion.
Fer de Lance *was* the worst of the Rex Stout novels, too. Be thankful they're not re-filming it.
Wow. Sounds pretty lame.
If *that* wheel-barrow load of chum and feces can get sold to a studio, certainly a script about a super-hero who is a tax attorney by day, crime fighter by night, could get picked up. Right? Cause everyone loves crime-fighting and hates taxes. Pete, maybe you could whip something up?