Will Snakes on a Plane be No. 1 at the Box Office?

It sure will be interesting if this movie does make it to number one in its opening week. It seems like they are dodging the critics to go right to the fans at ComicCon in San Diego.

If Snakes slinks to the top of the box office in its first weekend--and Pandya expects it will--it'll join the likes of When a Stranger Calls, Madea's Family Reunion and Underworld: Evolution, all 2006 films that claimed number one status without the benefit and/or distraction of critics' screenings.

"As it becomes more common to open films without press screenings, it becomes less of an issue," Pandya said.

Hmm, if it does make a bundle of money I think more lower budget films will dodge the critics and do what Snakes is going to do. I mean why have the critics hurt your movie when you have generated a ton of buzz and grass roots advertising via blogs like Snakes did. This paragraph certainly sums up this view:

Business-wise, Gitesh Pandya of the number-crunching movie site BoxOfficeGuru.com thinks New Line's decision will actually boost Snakes' bottom line.

"These kind of movies are marketing-driven, not critic-driven," Pandya said. "So the only thing the critics could do is hurt it. And even if the reviews are good, they wouldn't mean much."

So in a way the critics are irrelevant to the marketing of any internet buzz related movie. I wonder if this could lead to the end of the professional movie critic as we know it? The most valuable target audience might end up going to their internet peer group first and foremost and totally ignore the critics. They could go to their MySpace friends, or to blogs with insider connections like Aint it Cool News, and soak up the free internet buzz.

That would mean that wiser movie producers will use the internet buzz to shill their movies and totally dodge Ebert and Roper or anyone that can hurt the word of mouth going into the opening of their movie.

I guess the so-called Oscar contender type movies will always be there to give the professional critics something to do. I mean those movies have a financial incentive that the critics directly affect. An Oscar nod engineered by critics backing a movie will make the Box Office go up no matter what.