The wild and wacky adventures of the Internet and Hollywood
It’s no real secret that the internet has changed a lot in today’s world. And it will continue to do so.. long gone are the days of the static websites where you only get the news studios want to feed you. Now we can have a say in the industry. With the advent of Web 2.0, the internet has truly become a user community with the likes of facebook, youtube and twitter. Users now have a bigger voice that ever before and wannabe filmmakers, critics and bloggers (ME) have found the perfect medium to display their talents (ME). Print media is reserved for the more educated and trained writers of olde, but the internet changed all that. With almost instant film reviews and opinions popping up from every corner of the globe. The web has given everyone the chance to become a critic, and EVERYONE HAS BEEN ONE at one point or another.
And Hollywood has wised up. They know that the old business practices are slowly getting obsolete and they have to innovate to succeed. Case in point: Paranormal Activity. When this movie was completed in 2007 it lingered on for two years, touring small film festivals and the like until Paramount stepped in and released it (although in a limited capacity) in September 2009. And that is when the internet worked its magic. Soon after screenings, critics and fans alike started posting about this little film called Paranormal Activity. Movie websites posted reviews on their front page and twitter users began to see a new trending topic. Paramount then caught wind of this phenomena and then started posting web banners that urge fans to demand it in their local cinema.
Then Paramount hit paydirt.
The web banner only needed 1,000,000 demands for Paramount to give the film a wide release and sure enough, over a million people wanted to see it. That was their go signal. After the nationwide release this $15,000 film shot from #20 to #4 in the weekend box office and had a staggering 1,384% increase in its revenue. And in a feat rarely seen in the box office, Paranormal Activity rose through the charts in the weeks following its release thanks in no small part to the internet and how the users constantly tweeted, dugg or whatever that movie. True enough, Paranormal Activity became the first real internet sensation for the film industry.
So we see that the internet can make a film but can the internet break it?
Well, we haven’t seen one movie that was totally destroyed by the internet community, but there have been several that were negatively affected by it. Perhaps the biggest internet casualty in recent memory was the infamous leaked workprint of X-men Origins: Wolverine (although i still maintain the belief that Fox was behind it all along). On March 31st 2009, torrent sites were flooded with links to an unfinished version of Wolverine, complete with stunt wires and all. To no one’s surprised news of the existence of such a copy spread like wildfire.
And Fox was pissed, so much so that when Roger Friedman, a blogger on Fox’s own 411 Blog posted a review of his illegal copy he was fired. Fox cooperated with the MPAA to find the uploader of the copy but it was too late. By the time of the films theatrical release it has been estimated that 4.5 million copies of the workprint have been illegally downloaded.
Studios have now become aware of the power of the Internet Press and are now trying their best to get into their good graces. When Harry Knowles started aintitcoolnews in 1996 he was just a disabled kid from Austin, Texas. And 13 years after, he has become sort of an internet authority when it comes to film news. Harry as well as other prominent internet critics have been flown to press junkets and world premieres (a privilege once reserved for the more “formal” print critics). With print media slowly dying a painful death, some studios have approached some of the more, shall we say, “eccentric” members of the internet press, as evidenced by the lack of a screening of GI Joe for the print critics, hoping that a favored screening for them will warrant the film some good reviews, and thankfully it got some good reviews.
So with the internet changing the way we see and think about movies. The studios have now reached a more dynamic relationship with us the audience. It is now up to them to either exploit or enrich this relationship with us. They know that we can shower them praise or vitriol almost instantly and it all rests on their shoulder if they want to give us better movies this time around.
