Production
The story is credited to David Dalessandro, a University of Pittsburgh administrator and first-time Hollywood writer. He developed the concept in 1992 after reading a nature magazine article about Indonesian brown tree snakes climbing onto planes in cargo during World War II. He originally wrote the screenplay about the brown tree snake loose on a plane, titling the film Venom. He soon revised it, expanding upon the premise to include a plague of assorted venomous snakes, then—crediting the film Aliens—revised it once again to include "lots of them loose in the fuselage of a plane." Dalessandro's third draft of Venom was turned down by more than 30 Hollywood studios in 1995. In 1999, a producer for MTV/Paramount showed interest in the script, followed up by New Line Cinema, which took over the rights for production.
Originally, the film, under the working title Snakes on a Plane, was going to be directed by Hong Kong action director Ronny Yu. Jackson, who had previously worked with Yu on The 51st State, learned about the announced project in the Hollywood trade newspapers and, after talking to Yu, agreed to sign on without reading the script, based on the director, storyline, and the title. Initially New Line Cinema did not believe that Jackson had actually signed on to the project and had to call his agent to clarify. Jackson would later defend his choice of starring in the movie by stating "it was the kind of movie I would have gone to see when I was a kid", further clarifying "I feel sorry for all those people that are going through that whole trip of 'Why would Samuel Jackson do something like this?' and 'It's lowbrow.' It's a movie. People go to movies on Saturday to get away from the war in Iraq and taxes and election news and pedophiles online and just go and have some fun and I like doing movies that are fun." Yu departed the project only a few months later. New Line Cinema went with David Ellis, who had directed Final Destination 2 for them and had also served as a second-unit director on prior Jackson movies with Sphere and Deep Blue Sea.
The film's B movie-esque title generated a lot of pre-release interest on the Internet. One journalist wrote that Snakes on a Plane is "perhaps the most internet-hyped film of all time". Much of the initial publicity came from a blog entry made by screenwriter Josh Friedman, who had been offered a chance to work on the script. The casting of Jackson further increased anticipation. At one point, the film was given the title Pacific Air Flight 121, only to have it changed back to the working title at Jackson's request. In August 2005, Jackson told an interviewer, "We're totally changing that back. That's the only reason I took the job: I read the title." On March 2, 2006, the studio reverted the title to Snakes on a Plane. New Line hired two additional writers to smooth out the screenplay.
Taking advantage of the Internet buzz for what had been a minor film in their 2006 line-up, New Line Cinema ordered five days of additional shooting in early March 2006 (principal photography had wrapped in September 2005). While re-shoots normally imply problems with a film, the producers opted to add new scenes to the film to change the MPAA rating from PG-13 to R and bring it in line with growing fan expectations. The most notable addition was a revision of a catchphrase from the film that was parodied on the Internet by fans of the film, capitalizing on Jackson's typically foul-mouthed and violent film persona: "Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!". Subsequently, the public responded favorably to this creative change and marketing strategy, leading some members of the press to speculate that "the movie has grown from something of a joke into a phenomenon". The Daily Telegraph described this process as making the film "crowdsourced" and The Guardian described it as "the first Wikipedia-ised movie, created by the users themselves". Jackson told GQ in 2024, "They were trying to make a PG-13 movie, and you can only have one 'fuck' or some shit like that in it. And I told them, 'Look, I gotta say motherfucker in this movie. There's motherfucking snakes all over this plane.'"
More than 450 snakes were used for filming to represent 30 different species of snakes. The different species include a 19-foot (5.8 m) Burmese python named Kitty (which the crew called Kong for film purposes), scarlet kingsnake (the non-venomous double for the eastern coral snake), milk snake, corn snakes, rattlesnakes, and mangrove snakes. The scarlet kingsnake and Pueblan milk snake stood in for coral snakes, while the Eastern milk snake and Florida kingsnake filled the role of the venomous Australian taipan (which attacks the couple having sex and the man using a restroom respectively). About two-thirds of the snakes seen throughout the film were either animatronic or CGI. The snakes that were real were mostly the non-venomous ones that are never seen attacking anyone. The scenes where someone is clearly bitten were often done with a mix of animatronic and animation. According to the DVD, all the snakes had production names, but only Scarface (an animated pit viper), Peanut (a cobra), and Kong are mentioned by name in the audio commentary. During filming, Jackson did not interact with any live snakes, due to a contract clause preventing snakes from being within 8 m (25 ft) of the actor.
