INT: David R. Ellis

Note: This interview took place during the weekend of the San Diego Comic Con,
July 20-23.

David Ellis first got in touch with me just a few short weeks
after he signed on to SNAKES
ON A PLANE. The PACIFIC AIR rumors were running rampant and he
wanted to set the record straight. Basically he wanted to assure me the
title would stay, the script was being worked on and the film would,
essentially, kick-ass as we had all hoped. That’s when I knew that SOAP
would be the phenomenon it was today. It’s that attention to the fans that
got them here (that and snakes on a plane!). It was a pleasure to finally
sit and talk with David in person after a number of previous
conversations. Here’s what he had to say…

Mike Sampson: Dave, nice to finally meet you.

David R. Ellis: Nice to meet you as well.

Is this your first time at Comic-Con?

Yeah.

Did you get to walk the floor at all?

Not yet.

They’ve got an amazing set-up for SNAKES.

Yeah I saw it this morning. Sam
and I came here really early this morning before all the people showed up.
And we got to see it then. It’s
really great.

So how did SNAKES come to you, because the script had been
around a bit before your involvement.

When I came aboard it was still SNAKES ON A PLANE.
It was Ronny Yu who had been the director.
What happened was Ronny Yu was on-board and they were having creative
differences with him. So he stepped
off and they were looking for a director and they called me up and asked if
I could do it. I said sure.

What changes did you make to the script when you signed
on?

When I came on board, they gave me the script and asked me if
I’d do it and I said I’d do it if I could work on the script.
So I spent four months working on the script and made changes trying
to improve it. Then Sam came on board
and I talked to Sam about what he thought and we took all those notes, put
them together with Tanya, my daughter who’s also my producing partner, who
had notes and thoughts on how to make it great for the demographic that
we’re going after. So we worked on
it and we took those changes to Sam and he loved it so we started casting.

What were some of the problems you saw with the existing
script that you wanted to change?

I wanted to give more variety with the snake deaths and have
more fun with that. Otherwise it’d
become redundant. At the same time
improve the dialogue so it was a little more hipper for the kids.
The script at that time was 122 pages.
We took 19 pages out of it cause I didn’t want a two hour and 15
minute movie, I wanted an hour and thirty minute movie.
We worked on all that and got it in good shape and we were ready to
do it.

When did you realize that the movie had taken on a life of
its own?

When I was shooting I was following what was happening on the
internet and as it continued to build and grow and more controversy about
whether we were going to change the name, I stayed aware of it.
It was really cool cause it gave the unique ability to kinda target
the movie to the fans that were actually gonna go and see it.
So that’s what we did.

You talk about changing the name, was there ever a real
chance this wasn’t gonna be SNAKES ON A PLANE?

No. It was on casting
sheets cause a lot of the actors weren’t taking it seriously.
We were trying to go out with agents and stuff and they’d say,
“SNAKES ON A PLANE, that sounds dumb.” So
we changed the name so we could get more interest from people.
But we knew were always going back. But
the controversy just created more dialogue about it so whether they’re
talking good or bad they were talking.

But while the hype can be a good thing, are you afraid at
all about overhype? Or peaking too
soon before the August release?

Not really cause we have two kinds of buzz for this movie.
We have the fans that are excited about seeing Sam Jackson kick ass
on the plane. They love the high
concept and they can’t wait to hear him say, “I’m tired of these
motherf*cking snakes on this motherf*cking plane.”
They’re embracing seeing snakes attack people and people getting f*cked
up. There’s those fans.
And the other fans are people who are interested in the movie but
they think it’s gonna be the best worst movie of the year.

So there’s different level of that fever pitch.
These guys over here think it’s gonna suck but it’s gonna suck
but they’re gonna go see it anyway for the novelty and they’ll like it
even if it does suck. What’s gonna
be fun is that we’re gonna take those people and totally blow their minds.
Cause the movie works really, really well.
It’s really good. We’ve
shown it to a lot of really powerful people in Hollywood who can judge
whether a movie’s good and are very objective and everyone who’s seen it
has loved it.

Speaking of screenings, New Line said there will be no
advance screenings for the public or press. Do
you agree with that decision and if so, why?

That was my decision. What
happened was I was aware of what was happening with the internet and I said
I don’t want to do trailers. If we
do that it’ll be three-to-four minutes of the best stuff from the movie
and that’s what everybody does. Why
would we want to do that and give away all that stuff?
So I talked them into doing all the teasers.
So we have 30 seconds of just little tidbits of stuff and we keep
getting that stuff out there periodically. And
today we’ll show 10 minutes of stuff –
that nobody has seen ever before – to the fans.
Then we had the Cobra Starship video out and other stuff that will be
continually leaked until the day of the release.

How much did the marketing change as the hype began to
build? I’d imagine you’d have to
throw your original plan in the garbage.

Totally went out the window. They
saw that we had to think outside the box. That
we had to start doing viral marketing and underground marketing.
The studio doesn’t traditionally do that.
New Line traditionally always test their movies at least 3 times.
They always show to the press and the only time they don’t show it
to the press is if they’re afraid it’s awful.
But that’s not the case with this movie.
The case with this movie is I thought the fans are part of the
reasons that we have the wave behind us and they should see it before anyone
else. The critics can see it then as
well and they can judge how they want to judge.
It really is for the fans.

You’re next movie is ASYLUM?
Can you talk a little bit about what that film will be about?

It’s a really cool
psychological horror film set in a insane asylum that’s been converted into
a college. These kids go to school – they each have dark secrets, each their
own – and they’re kinda haunted by this doctor who used to perform these
lobotomies on kids. He felt that he was doing a good thing by going in
through their eyes right here (points to his tear duct) to perform
experiments he thought would improve their mental well-being. But his
experiments went awry, he went insane and now he’s haunting the campus. It’s
gonna be really scary.

Great, thanks David.
Nice to finally meet you!

Same here Mike. Thanks
for all the support.