Ophidiophobia on a Plane

Posted on August 18, 2006

The Word of the Day is ophidiophobia: a fear of snakes. And, for those of you who love the little slitherers, there's always ophiophilia: a love of snakes. And why, might you ask, are we highlighting ophidiophobia? Because today Samual L. Jackson and Snakes on a Plane hit theaters. And so far it looks like the critics are going to be rather kind to the film. Screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez discusses his latest ouevre.

I wrote the American remake of The Eye, the Pang Brothers movie, and one of the producers called me up and said "I'm doing this movie at New Line called Snakes on a Plane," and I laughed and asked what it was about, and he said "that's it, snakes on a plane." So I read the script, and basically New Line was ready to make the movie, budget was in and director was in, but they asked if I could help out with character and dialogue.
I think it will be a really fun movie, but you definitely have to get past the ridiculousness of the concept. It's a movie that isn't in any way pretentious. My job was to try and do a dialogue and character pass that was never campy and keep a suspense tone, which is hard because you have a movie called Snakes on a Plane.

Maybe Pedro Almodovar was right.