A few months back I emailed some friends (one of them a Samuel L Jackson fan with a subscription to Empire) a link to this ‘Blog post about an upcoming movie that practically defines “high concept“: Snakes On A Plane, a film that Samuel L Jackson will appear in because of, not despite, its title. Since then, Snakes On A Plane has become a full-on Internet phenomenon. By the time it comes out later this year it will almost certainly have acquired negative pre-publicity of Waterworld-like magnitude and cannot, therefore, fail to make back the costs incurred in making it.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the guy who talked himself out of fixing the script might turn out, by writing about this experience, to be the cause of the success of the movie he walked away from—exactly unlike the way Pete Best made the Beatles global superstars. Josh Friedman has got to, at the very least, be given a VIP ticket to the premiere. Or perhaps he’s been in on the whole thing from the start.

4 words + 1 box-office name = ker-ching!