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Lights, camera, Web!
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August 12, 1999: 7:53 a.m. ET
From 'Blair Witch' to 'Thomas Crown,' Net transforms the movies
By Staff Writer Martha Slud
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - "The Blair Witch Project," a low-budget horror movie made by a group of young filmmakers, has worked its magic to become this summer's sleeper smash at the box office.
It's also become a hit on the Internet -- outshining the major Hollywood studios who are trotting out "official movie Web sites" for virtually every film they make.
"Blair Witch Project" Web site has gotten hot
The popularity of the film's Web site, Blairwitch.com, helped heighten interest among fans long before the general public learned about the movie, a mock documentary about a group of film students who venture into the remote Maryland woods to investigate the legend of a killer witch.
Replete with grainy photos, mock evidence, timelines and journals that burnish the film's pseudo reality, the Web site represents a form of entertainment in itself. And, industry experts say, it is a much more compelling and creative promotional tool than most newspaper ads or TV spots could ever be.
In fact, the average time spent per person on the "Blair Witch" site runs a lengthy 16.1 minutes, according to figures from Nielsen Net Ratings, which tracks Web traffic. That compares with about 6 minutes per viewer on another popular site, Disney 's (DIS) Tarzan.com site, according to statistics provided by Disney's Buena Vista Internet Group. Nielsen says traffic to the "Blair Witch" site rose to 648,000 for the week ended Aug. 1, up 67 percent from three weeks earlier.
"The site itself is awfully appealing because it's not obviously commercial," says Peggy O'Neill, senior Internet analyst at Nielsen Net Ratings. "It appeals to a pretty Web-savvy (person), who happens to be at home from school during the summer months - timing-wise it turned out very well."
The role of the Web in the success of "Blair Witch" underscores the growing role of the Internet in movie marketing. A Hollywood promotion blitz is an expensive affair that industry experts say can easily cost $25 million or more for a major film.
In recent years, moviemakers large and small have been testing the Web as a marketing tool that some consider unparalleled in terms of potential cost-effectiveness. Forrester Research analyst Joe Butt estimates that major Hollywood film sites cost about $100,000 to produce, a fraction of the costs of traditional advertising.
Pierce Brosnan in "The Thomas Crown Affair"
For moviemakers, the Internet is "the most efficient use of marketing dollars on the planet -- I guarantee you," says Gordon Paddison, director of interactive marketing at New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner Inc. (TWX), which is also the parent company of CNNfn. Paddison developed one of the most popular movie sites of the summer - the official Web site for "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me."
The site, which Nielsen says drew nearly 300,000 viewers at its peak in mid-June, features a free, weekly e-mail service in which fans can download interactive episodes featuring the film's characters. "They interact and dance on your desktop," Paddison explains.
Austin Powers site e-mails episodes
Still, Hollywood has been slow to recognize the potential of the Internet, says Mark Mooradian, a senior analyst at Jupiter Communications.
"In large part, Hollywood doesn't take this medium very seriously yet," he said. "It's very hard to quantify the success of any type of marketing -- let alone marketing on the Web -- but I believe that the Web is a powerful marketing tool especially relevant to the Hollywood studios."
More than an advertisement?
Movie Web sites invite fans to peruse plot lines, download sneak previews, get backstage gossip, play trivia games and shop for film soundtracks and other memorabilia. The sites -- which basically amount to elaborate advertisements - allow movie buffs to develop a more lasting experience with a film, says Nadine Mendoza, executive producer of Moviequest.com, an online film information service.
"I think fans are very hungry for information," she said. "It really builds an enthusiasm within the fan community."
While movie Web sites traditionally were introduced for genres such as science fiction, animation or action adventure - films that lend themselves well to Internet graphics -- today almost every type of movie is promoted on the Web, from dramas such as Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam" to romantic comedies like "Notting Hill."
Some sites are simple affairs, offering little more than the who's-in-it, coming-to-a-theater-near-you details found in print or TV ads. Others are more complex, with original content created specifically for the Web.
A virtual "postcard" ad for
"A Midsummer Night's Dream"
For example, the sumptuously illustrated site for Fox Searchlight's "A Midsummer's Night's Dream," which was released earlier this year, offered fans the opportunity to send personalized greetings to one another featuring artistic images from the film along with a Shakespearean quote of their choosing.
The site for "The Thomas Crown Affair," a Pierce Brosnan-Rene Russo remake of the 1968 caper about a bored billionaire who pulls off a spectacular art heist, features historical background on notorious art thefts and forgeries. Visitors to the Web page also are greeted by a pop-up ad for the Italian jeweler Bulgari, whose products -- not coincidentally -- are featured prominently in the film.
One of the most popular movie sites recently was the official site for "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace," which gave many fans a sneak preview of the characters and story line. That site drew about 676,000 at its peak in late May, according to Nielsen.
But the real blockbuster site of the summer has been "Blair Witch," which presents an interesting study in confluence of media. The Web site is designed to draw viewers who will presumably want to see the film. Many movie reviewers writing about the film have mentioned the popular Web site, and the movie's TV spots and print ads also refer to the Internet destination. And of course, once a viewer hops on the site, he or she can find convenient links to the site of distributor Artisan Entertainment, with opportunities to buy "Blair Witch" T-shirts, posters, buttons and other merchandise.
Industry experts say film Web sites can have a rich life long after a movie has been released, providing information and entertainment that spark video sales and rentals, for example.
"A movie doesn't end when it comes out of the theaters -- it has various ancillary markets," says Stuart Halperin, executive vice president of Hollywood.com, an online movie data network. "A movie is a product that hopefully lasts forever. For all of those years, people will need a resource to learn about it."
And it's not just blockbusters that are getting the star treatment online. Many smaller films, such as the recent art house release, "The Red Violin," can boost interest by gaining attention on the Internet, a la "Blair Witch," Moviequest.com's Mendoza says.
Hollywood discovers the Net
Like almost everything on the Internet, movie Web sites have rapidly evolved. In their initial incarnation several years ago -- when few consumers had modems that were fast enough to take advantage of audio or video trailers online -- the sites served as little more than online press kits, designed primarily for journalists, said Brett Dicker, senior vice president for marketing and promotions at Disney's Buena Vista Pictures.
Then about two years ago, he said, "we started to create material specifically for the World Wide Web."
Disney says it's learned from Tarzan.com
"I think it's really come to fruition with our Tarzan Web site," he said. "We can develop things that you just can't do within the normal course of advertising."
Still, the quality of the sound and video available on the Web has a ways to go, experts say. Also, many people still do not have fast-enough Internet connections to fully take in all of the bells and whistles these sites offer.
Meanwhile, studios are trying to get their sites up earlier and earlier. Mendoza notes that the site for Universal Studios' "Mystery Men," a comic spoof about an unlikely group or superheroes, went up weeks before its release.
Dicker, of Disney, said that his team is working on Web sites for films far down the road. Ideally, he says, they'd like to get the sites up several months before the movies debut. Sony Pictures Entertainment, for example, already has a small site established for Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the best-selling novel, "Memoirs of a Geisha," which is still in its earliest stages of production.
Much like moviemakers themselves who are constantly trying to outdo last year's offerings with bigger and better special effects, Web developers also are feeling pressure to come up with something more.
"Web users are extremely savvy," says Dicker. "You have to do more than just give them basic information. They expect to get something behind the scenes."
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