Had It with these Motherf***ing Deaths: R.I.P. Snakes on a Plane Director David R. Ellis
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Director David R. Ellis has died suddenly and unexpectedly, Deadline.com reports, as he was in Johannesburg, South Africa, prepping a live-action adaptation of the anime Kite.
Though he’ll undoubtedly be remembered primarily as the guy who let Samuel L. Jackson deliver the signature line about his impatience with reptiles, Ellis is also the guy who made one of my favorite horror sequels, Final Destination 2, in which he took the absurd premise of death-by-coincidental-Rube-Goldberg-chain-of-events and made it fun, stripping away the self-seriousness that hampered the first one. He was no great auteur, but he knew what his movies were and he was unpretentious about letting them hit the marks they needed to.
Kite would certainly have been an interesting project to adapt, especially starring Samuel L. Jackson. No word yet on if it will continue or not.
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Luke Y. Thompson has been writing professionally about movies and pop-culture since 1999, and has also been an actor in some extremely cheap culty and horror movies you will probably never hear much about (he is nonetheless mostly proud of them, as he met his wife on one). As editor of The Robot's Voice since 2012, he can take the blame for the majority of the site's content, all of which he creates because he loves you very, very much. (Although he loves nachos more. Sorry.) Prior to TRV, Luke wrote for publications that include the New Times LA, Los Angeles CityBeat, E! Online, OC Weekly, Geekweek, GeekChicDaily, The L.A. Times, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, and Nerdist