The Blair Witch Project delivered on its viral terror.
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00:00Now, it's unfortunately fair to say that a movie's success is most often down to
00:04how effectively it's marketed, because a misaligned marketing campaign can make sure
00:09that even a masterful movie will fail to connect with the masses.
00:13And then there are those films that are marketed heavily on the basis of a gimmick, be it 3D,
00:17an enticing mystery, or another highly specific element which the studio believes will appeal
00:21to viewers.
00:22But sometimes a film is just good, even great despite a campaign that sold it, and is actually
00:27lessened by the marketing gimmick that's attached to it.
00:30So let's take a look at them today, as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these
00:34are 10 Movies That Are Brilliant Besides Their Marketing Gimmick.
00:3710.
00:38Putting 3D in the Movie's Title – DREAD
00:42DREAD is one of the most baffling box office bombs of the last decade.
00:46Despite being budgeted at a totally sensible $45 million, and receiving largely positive
00:50reviews from judge DREAD fans and critics alike, the comic book reboot tanked at the
00:55box office, grossing an appalling $41.5 million worldwide.
00:59Several reasons were cited for this, such as audience disinterest in the IP following
01:03the 1995 Sylvester Stallone-starring dud, but for many, the culprit seemed to be the
01:08film's rather goofy marketing campaign.
01:10For some reason, somebody at the studio decided that in addition to being presented in 3D,
01:15the film would be released in cinemas with the title DREAD 3D.
01:20Given that the 3D craze was already waning by 2012, for many it made the film sound like
01:24a schlocky attraction full of heavy-handed, silly 3D effects that would supersede the
01:29story and the characters.
01:31Considering that the dimensional designation was often tacked onto titles of ridiculous
01:353D movies like My Bloody Valentine, Piranha, Step Up, Jackass, Sora, and A Very Harold
01:40and Kumar Christmas, it just didn't suggest that audiences should take DREAD seriously,
01:44and so they didn't.
01:46It's frustrating that a boneheaded marketing decision cut the film's box office out from
01:50under it, especially as the vast majority of people who have ever seen the film didn't
01:54actually see it in 3D.
01:55Though DREAD was, to its credit, shot in real 3D rather than being post-converted, it's
01:59really the least interesting part of the entire movie.
02:02On its own merits, it's a ludicrously entertaining, ultra-violent retooling of a classic comic
02:08property.
02:099.
02:10Telling Audiences Not To Spoil Its Big Secret – The Crying Game
02:14When a movie hinges its marketing campaign on a big surprise, it's always worth being
02:18wary, because this can often be marketing shorthand for a studio knowing that they've
02:22got a dud on their hands and are trying to disguise it with an alluring mystery.
02:25Neil Jordan's iconic 1992 thriller The Crying Game was memorably sold on the strength of
02:30its big twist, with trailers telling audiences that nothing is as it seems, while posters
02:34quite emphatically calling it a movie everyone is talking about, but no one is giving away
02:39its secrets.
02:40It was a brilliant marketing hook that absolutely worked, making the film a sleeper hit at the
02:44box office before it received six Oscar nominations.
02:47But beyond the marketing centred on just one aspect of the story, a twist that we won't
02:51reveal here in case you haven't actually seen it still, The Crying Game is an exceptionally
02:55crafted and frequently surprising piece of work that's by turns exciting and unexpectedly
03:00affecting.
03:01In retrospect, you can't really blame Miramax for clinging to the most attention-grabbing
03:05aspect of the film, but the big reveal has been so widely dissected and parodied in general
03:09culture that it's easy to forget that there is a superb film unfolding behind it.
03:148.
03:15The Mystery Of What Is The Matrix – The Matrix
03:19Not entirely unlike The Crying Game, the marketing for The Matrix focused on its focal enigma,
03:23What Is The Matrix?
03:25The original teaser trailer quite ingeniously showed off a flurry of stunning shots from
03:29the film with absolutely no context whatsoever.
03:31No dialogue from the movies, no voice-over narration, nor any text to speak of.
03:36The trailer ended by directing the viewers to WhatIsTheMatrix.com, a website that actually
03:40didn't do a whole lot to demystify what audiences had seen, but only sent them further
03:44down the rabbit hole of mystery.
03:47This approach could have easily backfired, or been a cover to compensate for a film that
03:51didn't make a lot of sense, but The Matrix, of course, became a massive word-of-mouth
03:55hit as viewers told their friends about it.
03:57As Morpheus himself says, you really do have to see it for yourself.
04:01The Matrix was one of the first films to take full advantage of the internet's potential
04:04to help sell a movie to the entire world, and in this case, it helped that the movie
04:07also happened to be a stone-cold masterpiece in its own right.
04:117.
04:12Releasing The Trailer Without A Title – Cloverfield
04:16No filmmaker does the, what's in the box, what's in the box, quite like J.J. Abrams,
04:21who as a producer of 2008's monster movie Cloverfield spearheaded a marketing campaign
04:26centred around what audiences didn't know.
04:29In July 2007, the iconic teaser trailer for the film was put in front of screamings of
04:33Transformers, confirming the existence of an unseen monster, but in a radical move,
04:38didn't even give away the movie's title.
04:40The teaser release caused a feverish buzz online, and fans speculated on whether or
04:44not it might be a live-action Voltron movie, or a new Godzilla film, amongst many other
04:48things.
04:49The anticipation reached a fever pitch thanks to an extensive viral marketing campaign,
04:53including a complex alternate reality game, and a passionate fan community that entertained
04:58every last possible fan theory.
05:00The kicker, of course, is that Cloverfield actually ended up living up to the astronomical
05:04levels of hype, delivering an uncommonly diverting riff on both the found footage and monster
05:08movie genres.
05:10As much as Abrams is rightly pilloried for his deference towards mystery-infused marketing
05:14that the projects themselves don't often quite live up to, Cloverfield largely delivered
05:18the goods.
05:196.
05:20Making Audiences Demand Its Release – Paranormal Activity
05:23Paramount's handling of the original Paranormal Activity is nothing short of marketing genius,
05:29emphasising the supposedly real nature of its scares, but even more brilliantly, focusing
05:33on the scarcity of available screenings.
05:37Paramount slowly expanded the film's release in the US and around the world, first showing
05:40it in a number of college towns where they recorded audiences' reactions, which were
05:44then memorably shown in the movie's trailers.
05:47As word of mouth from preview screenings began to spread, Paramount insisted that audiences
05:51had to go online and demand screenings in their city, and if it received a million demands,
05:56the film would roll out nationwide.
05:58FOMO, or fear of missing out, is one of the most compelling psychological phenomenons
06:02that can be exploited when marketing pretty much anything.
06:06Nobody likes to feel like they're missing out on what everybody else is talking about,
06:09and it worked perfectly here.
06:11Paranormal Activity ended up playing wide in the US and around the globe, where it grossed
06:15an unthinkable $193.4 million against its mere $15,000 original production budget.
06:22Better still, it felt like a massive breath of fresh air for the found footage genre at
06:26the time, and though its many sequels soon enough ran the formula into the ground, the
06:30original's lo-fi inventiveness still makes it hugely watchable even today.
06:345.
06:35It's All About Liam Neeson Punching Wolves – The Grey
06:39The trailer's for Liam Neeson's 2011 thriller The Grey, selling it as an existential meditation
06:44on grief and man vs nature that actually is, but rather promoting it as a film where Neeson
06:49just punches a wolf.
06:51Given Neeson's prior reinvention as an unexpected action hero, the film's marketing team couldn't
06:55resist but lean into it and place excessive focus on an apparent showdown between Neeson's
07:00hero John and a wolf.
07:02The trick worked well enough, given that The Grey easily tripled its budget at the box
07:05office, but it also racked up a so-so B-minus cinema score, which fell well below Neeson's
07:10more typical action joints, suggesting audiences had been misled about what they were seeing.
07:15It's frustrating that the marketing was so desperate to misrepresent the film as a
07:19more conventional action flick, because aside from all that nonsense, it's extremely well-crafted
07:24and is a surprisingly affecting drama about man's survival against the elements.
07:284.
07:29Circulating Copies of the Cursed Videotape Without Context – The Ring
07:34The marketing for the 2002 Hollywood remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring was
07:39absolutely genius.
07:41Copies of the film's infamous cursed videotape were mailed out to video rental stores and
07:45even placed in random locations, such as atop of people's cars, with the tape containing
07:50no explicit references to the film itself.
07:53Even TV spots which showed clips from the tape didn't name-drop the movie's title
07:57until much closer to release.
07:59But combined with the number of impressively convincing fake websites about the movie's
08:03release, word of mouth quickly did the rounds about The Ring.
08:06It would have surprised absolutely nobody if the remake turned out to be a soulless,
08:10cynical cashing-in on the Japanese original that used clever marketing to distract from
08:14a very poor product.
08:15So it's a pleasant surprise that Gore Verbinski's The Ring is genuinely good.
08:19Hell, it's a great horror film.
08:21Beautifully filmed, superbly acted by Naomi Watts, and absolutely living up to the chilling
08:25legacy of its lower-budget predecessor, The Ring 2002 is basically the standard-bearer
08:30for any English-language remake of an international horror film.
08:343.
08:35Exploiting the Audience's FOMO – Avatar
08:38When people express surprise that James Cameron's Avatar grossed $2.847 billion despite leaving
08:44no cultural imprint, they clearly don't remember how cleverly the highly-anticipated
08:49blockbuster was marketed.
08:51Buzz around the film had been building for years, focused on the mystery of Cameron's
08:55new IP and the innovative new technology that he'd developed to bring his vision to life.
08:59But of course, this was Cameron's first film since Titanic that was released an entire
09:0312 years earlier, which was enough to make it an easy sell to audiences.
09:07Given that we live in an era where most huge movies are wildly overexposed in their marketing,
09:12Avatar was a major breath of fresh air.
09:14The first official still wasn't released until about four months prior to its release,
09:18and the first trailer just a few days later.
09:21The trailers ultimately didn't give away much at all either, focusing instead on a
09:24strange new world, as well as the eye-popping visual effects and Cameron's legacy of classic
09:29films.
09:30FOMO was heavily leaned into, marketing it as a must-see 3D event that everyone would
09:35be talking about.
09:36And they certainly were, for a few months at least.
09:38Yet as fashionable as it is to rag on Avatar today, it's still a mesmerising feat of
09:43cinema in a lot of ways, taking a simple, elemental story and encasing it in one of
09:47the most spectacular technological flexes Hollywood has ever seen.
09:51If you genuinely think that Avatar 2 is going to be a box office flop, be prepared to eat
09:55a healthy serving of humble pie.
09:572.
09:58Convincing People It's Actually Real – The Blair Witch Project
10:02The horror movie marketing campaign to rule them all must surely be The Blair Witch Project.
10:07After the found footage film's premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, it was
10:11quickly acquired for distribution and became an intensely buzzy title as its release approached
10:16later that year.
10:17This was in large part due to the film's groundbreaking viral marketing campaign, which
10:21began months before its premiere and played itself 100% straight.
10:25Above all else, the film's website, trailers and posters suggested that the film's three
10:29main cast members were actually missing and that the film itself was a real found recording.
10:34The studio even went to the extent of having the actors be listed as missing, presumed
10:38dead on IMDb, and encouraging them to maintain a low profile during the movie's initial
10:43theatrical run.
10:45Released in 1999 when the general public was still relatively new to the internet, The
10:49Blair Witch Project's fake websites were easily believed by many, allowing the unnerving
10:53mystique of the titular entity to spread like wildfire.
10:57The result was a phenomenal return on investment, as its estimated $300,000 budget netted a
11:02worldwide gross of almost $250 million.
11:06On top of that, The Blair Witch Project is a terrifically terrifying piece of work, perfectly
11:11exploiting the audience's fear of the unknown and letting their own imaginations do all
11:15the heavy lifting.
11:16It's not for everyone, but it's perhaps the purest and most creative entry into the
11:20entire found footage genre.
11:221. Urging Audiences to Hang On For Stallone's Heart-Stopping Stunts – Cliffhanger
11:281993's Cliffhanger was understandably marketed on the full-throttle appeal of Sylvester Stallone
11:33placing himself in high-wire peril for our entertainment.
11:36The trailers couldn't fixate enough on shots of his life on the line, and most famously
11:41of all, making a frankly ridiculous leap over a gorge, accompanied by the memorable tagline
11:45of Hang On.
11:47Cliffhanger's award-winning marketing campaign belied the fact that it was also a surprisingly
11:52good movie, making the most of its peak-era action star, unique setting, and sweaty-palmed
11:57action to deliver a highly entertaining action flick.
12:01Cliffhanger went on to gross over $250 million worldwide against a $70 million budget, ensuring
12:06that it became one of Stallone's sturdier hits of the 90s.
12:09And considering that it could have so easily been all sizzle, no steak, it was refreshing
12:13to see a Stallone tentpole that backed up its flashy marketing with strong filmmaking
12:17craft.
12:18There you go, my friends, those were 10 movies that are actually great besides the marketing
12:22gimmick.
12:23I hope you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about it down in the
12:25comments section below.
12:27As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJayWithA0, or you
12:31can swing by Live and Let's Dice, where I do all of my streaming outside of work, and
12:34it'd be great to see you over there, my friends.
12:36Before I go, though, I just want to say one thing.
12:38Hope you're treating yourself well with love and respect, my friends, because you deserve
12:41all of the best things in life, and do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise,
12:45alright?
12:46I've got a massive ledge, and I'd go up there and smash your life goals today, I believe
12:50in you.
12:51As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak
12:54to you soon.
12:55Bye.