In the course of a “silly piece”:http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060830/opcom30.art.htm boosting Joe Lieberman against the loud but ineffectual online hordes, Bruce Kluger says:
If this wasn’t enough to drain the effervescence from the blogger bubbly, America’s noisy Web wags were dealt an even more sobering blow 10 days later when Snakes on a Plane opened nationwide to a decidedly flat $15.3 million box office. Before its premiere, Snakes had been the latest blogger darling, as swarms of online film geeks prematurely crowned it the summer’s big sleeper. This hyperventilating fan base even convinced Snakes’ distributor, New Line Cinema, to up the movie’s rating to R, to ensure a gorier, more venomous snake fest. But all that clapping and yapping couldn’t put enough fannies in the seats.
But what’s the right counterfactual here? I think it’s that _Snakes on a Plane_ is a cheap B-Movie that, in the absence of the jokey attention it got online, would have gone straight to DVD and never come close to the top of the box office for even a single weekend. If anyone was suckered by the “mythology of the blogosphere” it was New Line Cinema, who clearly had convinced themselves that they had another _Titanic_ on their hands. (Maybe they had — just the wrong one.)
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dsquared 08.30.06 at 10:59 am
Before its premiere, Snakes had been the latest blogger darling, as swarms of online film geeks prematurely crowned it the summer’s big sleeper
why would you judge a “sleeper” hit by its opening weekend?
Cryptic Ned 08.30.06 at 11:10 am
I agree with this. New Line Cinema made an enormous mistake opening it in so many theaters. They should have made sure that just about everyone who saw it saw it in a full theater; that was much more important for Snakes On A Plane than for your average non-internet-fad movie. That way, getting to $15.3 million opening weekend would be seen as the unusual event it was (compared to the real competition, the sequels to “Anaconda” and “Species”), rather than a horrible per-screen average.
medusa 08.30.06 at 11:11 am
Nor does Best. Title. EVAR!!1! mean I predict a box-office blockbuster.
Ginger Yellow 08.30.06 at 11:39 am
What Medusa said. I don’t recall “the blogosphere” predicting that SOAP would be a huge hit. “The blogosphere” just said that it would probably be a very funny film with a very funny title. It is. Also, Ned Lamont won his primary. I really don’t know how Klugar manages to spin these results into rain on the blogosphere’s parade.
Steve LaBonne 08.30.06 at 11:40 am
I’m tired of these [censored] silly blogosphere columns in these [censored] newspapers.
(C’mon, somebody had to do it!)
matt d 08.30.06 at 12:02 pm
Since USA Today is always getting its football predictions wrong, I’m going to conclude that I should disregard the editorial page of the Times. Because they’re both newspapers, after all.
Oh wait, that would be stupid. But no more stupid than drawing conclusions about political blogs from (mistaken) views about cultural/entertainment blogs.
Michael Bérubé 08.30.06 at 12:02 pm
Joe Lieberman is the only Democrat who takes seriously the threat of motherlovin’ snakes on planes. Elect Ned Lamont and you might as well hand America over to our Herpetofascist enemies.
djw 08.30.06 at 12:07 pm
Um, it’s time to note that the blogosphere is not one thing. I read lots of blogs, but I barely noticed any mention of that stupid movie. The Snakes on a Plane mania was clearly taking place in some other blogosphere.
BruceR 08.30.06 at 1:39 pm
Sure, you’re just saying this now out of guilt that you didn’t do more on CT to promote Snakes on a Plane. Years from now, when the historians look back, they will point at Crooked Timber’s negligence as chiefly responsible for the decline of Samuel L. Jackson’s later career. And they’ll be right.
skippy 08.30.06 at 1:44 pm
as i said on ntodd’s blog,
even more to the point, to compare lamont’s run against the de-facto repubbb lieberman to the opening weekend (#1, may i remind everyone) of a grade b throw-away summer popcorn flick is ludicrous. to use the two disperate phenomenae to measure some sort of vague and ill-defined “blogger success rate” is so ridiculous that it doesn’t even warrant the energy it took me to write this sentence.
certainly not the energy it took to write this blog post.
skippy 08.30.06 at 1:44 pm
as i said on ntodd’s blog,
even more to the point, to compare lamont’s run against the de-facto repubbb lieberman to the opening weekend (#1, may i remind everyone) of a grade b throw-away summer popcorn flick is ludicrous. to use the two disperate phenomenae to measure some sort of vague and ill-defined “blogger success rate” is so ridiculous that it doesn’t even warrant the energy it took me to write this sentence.
certainly not the energy it took to write this blog post.
The Ugly American 08.30.06 at 2:09 pm
Like I told Skippy. Glad to see we can agree on something.
novakant 08.30.06 at 3:17 pm
is this an interesting way of cross-commenting I haven’t heard about yet, skippy?
Martin James 08.30.06 at 3:21 pm
I don’t know how influential blogs are but the half- life of comment threads makes me think they are more superficial than they should be.
Old school news is likewise timely, but no one really looks to journalism for ideas.
Does this just reflect that all writing and cultural communication has a very short shelf-life these days?
Where are the theories and ideas that will stand the test of time?
Theron 08.30.06 at 3:27 pm
I can also imagine that SOP probably has better odds of living on in semi-cult status because of all the blog attention. You’d think Kluger had missed, oh, the last 30 years in the evolution of the movie business
John Quiggin 08.30.06 at 5:09 pm
Even sillier is Kluger’s implied victory condition for bloggers – not a win in the primary, or even in the general election, but inducing Lieberman not to run at all.
If he had any guts, he would have predicted a Lieberman win, instead of which the best he can do is that “Lieberman is the man to beat”, and that, having attained that status (at least in Kluger’s eyes) he has already beaten the bloggers.
Michael Bérubé 08.30.06 at 6:58 pm
the half- life of comment threads makes me think they are more superficial than they should be
As if! Comments that comment disparagingly on comment threads are, like, so 3:21 pm.
john bragg 08.30.06 at 7:22 pm
I think we’re being rather unfair to Kluger. He’s saying that, if you pay attention to the internet, you’re liable to confuse intensity of support with breadth of support. Kruger argues that this is a result of the internet allowing people with similar obsessions to connect, and these connections form an echo chamber.
And I don’t think it was Kluger who set the victory condition as Lieberman quitting–it was various Lamont backers who are demanding that Lieberman quit or they’ll, err, they’ll be even madder at Lieberman.
His point isn’t about Lieberman or Samuel Jackson. His point is about not reading the internet as a proxy for the general audience.
If you want “the right counterfactual”, it was Snakes on a Plane having an opening weekend like Passion of the Christ, another high-hype, limited appeal, high motivation movie.
vivian 08.30.06 at 9:59 pm
well, ok John, except it’s not clear who was trying to infer breadth from intensity – except for the “not me” journalist types writing these articles. Besides, what Dsquared said.
skippy 08.30.06 at 10:01 pm
is this an interesting way of cross-commenting i haven’t heard about yet, skippy?
well, i try not to be a complete blogwhore. subtlety, doncha know.
Ginger Yellow 08.31.06 at 4:04 pm
“Um, it’s time to note that the blogosphere is not one thing.”
Shhh. Don’t let the cat out of the bag. Otherwise they might have to, you know, read the blogs they talk about. And the last thing anybody wants is Richard Cohen bloviating on Crooked Timber.
C. L. Ball 08.31.06 at 9:12 pm
Flat? It opened as the #1 movie. And it grossed 40% more than the #3 film World Trade Center. And its producers are much happier than the ones who made Pulse right now.
Raven 09.03.06 at 11:16 am
Re #7: Michael, your first sentence should read “… motherlovin’ snakes on motherlovin’ planes.†Without the second “motherlovin’†the scansion is off.
In your second sentence, I’m offended by the term “Herpetofascist.†Most snakes are Libertarians, though admittedly many of the venomous sorts have become Republicans.
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