Jackson Fought For 'Snakes' Movie Name

Samuel L. Jackson's movies have made more money than any other actor's in the history of Hollywood, and there's huge buzz over his latest, "Snakes on a Plane."

On The Early Show Wednesday, Jackson told co-anchor Harry Smith the buzz about "Snakes" actually began last summer while the movie was being filmed, and he added to it.

"Amazingly," he recalled, "I had no idea (about all the talk about 'Snakes') until, one day, I was actually online and I realized, 'Wow, this thing has a life already!' People were already angry about them trying to change the name of it" from "Snakes on a Plane" to "Pacific Air 121."

"As soon as I realized the folks on the Net were behind me," Jackson continued, "it was easy for me to get in there and start blogging myself daily and throwing things in and talking to the people."

Jackson says he was "totally" part of the conversation.

"Snakes" has Jackson playing an FBI agent escorting a man who witnessed a brutal mob murder. But the mob suspect has a crate loaded with poisonous snakes loaded onto the plane with a timer that releases them when the flight is halfway across the Pacific.

Smith wondered whether the movie was done "straight" or as a parody.

"It's a real situation among people on this plane," Jackson responded. "And people sitting there watching it can get involved in it as a situation that could possibly happen as a real thing. It's not tongue-in-cheek. It's done as a serious action thriller.

"There are a lot of laughs along with all the screams. It's funny, it's thrilling, it's sad in places. It's a good kind of roller coaster of a movie."

Jackson revealed that about 400 real snakes were used in making the film but, "We didn't actually work with snakes because we were doing a lot of running and jumping around and we didn't want to hurt any snakes while we were doing it. … We had rubber snakes and all kinds of stuff to deal with. The real snakes were on another plane."