Samuel L. Jackson Says ‘Snakes on a Plane’ Studio Gave Him More F-Bombs After Test Screenings

Glenn Garner
·2-min read

An MPAA rating almost deprived audiences of one of Samuel L. Jackson‘s most quoted lines.

As the Honorary Academy Award winner reflected on his wide-ranging career, he revealed that the studio behind Snakes on a Plane (2006) had to shell out “a bunch of money” on reshoots after initially filming the movie with substantially less F-bombs.

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“They were trying to make a PG-13 movie, and you can only have one ‘f—’ or some s— like that in it,” he recalled to GQ. “And I told them, ‘Look, I gotta say motherf—er in this movie. There’s motherf—ing snakes all over this plane.’ They’re like, ‘Aw Sam, come on! No.’ I said ok fine, they were out.

“They test the movie and test the movie,” Jackson continued. “All of a sudden, we gotta do a reshoot. It cost them a bunch of money to get that ‘motherf—er.'”

Jackson has long been quoted for his character, FBI Agent Neville Flynn, who memorably declares, “I have had it with these motherf—ing snakes on this motherf—ing plane.”

In Snakes on a Plane, Agent Flynn escorts a star witness to trial on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles, during which an assassin releases a crate of deadly serpents to kill the witness. Jackson’s foul-mouthed fed bands together with passengers and crew to survive the snakes until touching down at LAX.

Although the David R. Ellis-helmed action flick was met with mixed reviews, Snakes on a Plane got its R rating and ultimately lived up to the camp factor implied in its title. The movie earned $62 million globally, which fell short of New Line Cinema‘s expectations after the title became an early viral phenomenon.

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