Movies That Were “Made” By The Internet.
The Internet is an amazing tool, as well as a resource. While filmmakers are still developing ways to distribute unique content online in a way that makes it profitable and reaches enough of an audience to make the effort worthwhile, many major studios and independent production companies already use the Internet to generate enough buzz to become a phenomenon. Some of the best examples of studios using the Internet to virally build interest in their projects follow.
One of the first, most potent successful films based largely on Internet buzz was The Blair Witch Project. The Blair Witch Project was a horror film that the director shot with an amateur handheld camera style and centered on the idea that the movie was actually a found video “documentary.” For months in advance of the film’s release, an Internet campaign of disinformation claimed that the movie was authentic, that the events in it were real! As a result, many people who saw The Blair Witch Project actually believed they were witnessing the disappearance of the kids in the movie! The Blair Witch Project grossed almost a quarter of a billion dollars as the box office and spawned a sequel, merchandising and a small comic book franchise!
Similarly, when J.J. Abrams began producing Cloverfield, the studio kept virtually every detail about the movie under wraps. The viral marketing campaign for Cloverfield titillated potential moviegoers without providing them with actual information. So, for months before Cloverfield was released, the advertising campaign consisted of online games where players had to look at pictures and make guesses about what was happening in them and in what order they belonged. The only concrete elements of the movie released in advance were a ringtone and sound clip of the monster from Cloverfield. The opening weekend grosses for the movie were almost double the film’s budget and Cloverfield ended up taking in over $170,000,000 before its theatrical run ended!
One of the most recent movies to effectively use the Internet to generate buzz was Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. If you haven’t heard of the movie, it is not a surprise. The advertising campaign for the preposterous giant animal fight movie was limited almost exclusively to the Internet. By releasing a trailer for the film to MTV.com and YouTube exclusively, the film’s distributor (The Asylum) effectively targeted the only demographics that actually wanted to see the movie. The trailer pulled millions of viewers and kept interest in the film, even as the producers discovered it would be unlikely to get a theatrical release. What could have been an utter disaster for the distributor turned into one of the most successful straight-to-DVD presales pushes when The Asylum paired the trailer with an easy sales path to online DVD sellers!
Some of the above movies might well have been relegated to abject failure had it not been for the studios’ effective use of the Internet as an advertising tool.
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