The Blair Witch Project delivered on its viral terror.
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00:00 Now, it's unfortunately fair to say that a movie's success is most often down to
00:04 how effectively it's marketed. A misaligned marketing campaign can make sure that even
00:10 a masterful movie will fail to connect with the masses. And then there are those films
00:14 that are marketed heavily on the basis of a gimmick, be it 3D, an enticing mystery,
00:18 or another highly specific element which the studio believes will appeal to viewers. But
00:23 sometimes, a film is just good, even great despite a campaign that sold it, and is actually
00:27 lessened by the marketing gimmick that's attached to it. So let's take a look at them
00:31 today as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Movies That Are Brilliant
00:35 Besides Their Marketing Gimmick.
00:37 10. Putting 3D in the Movie's Title - Dread
00:42 Dread is one of the most baffling box office bombs of the last decade. Despite being budgeted
00:47 at a totally sensible $45 million and receiving largely positive reviews from Judge Dread
00:52 fans and critics alike, the comic book reboot tanked at the box office, grossing an appalling
00:57 $41.5 million worldwide.
00:59 Several reasons were cited for this, such as audience disinterest in the IP following
01:03 the 1995 Sylvester Stallone starring Dud, but for many, the culprit seemed to be the
01:08 film's rather goofy marketing campaign. For some reason, somebody at the studio decided
01:13 that in addition to being presented in 3D, the film would be released in cinemas with
01:17 the title 'Dread 3D'. Given that the 3D craze was already waning by 2012, for many
01:23 it made the film sound like a schlocky attraction full of heavy-handed, silly 3D effects that
01:28 would supersede the story and the characters.
01:31 Considering that the dimensional designation was often tacked onto titles of ridiculous
01:35 3D movies like My Bloody Valentine, Piranha, Step Up, Jackass, Sora, and A Very Harold
01:40 and Kumar Christmas, it just didn't suggest that audiences should take Dread seriously,
01:44 and so they didn't.
01:46 It's frustrating that a boneheaded marketing decision cut the film's box office out from
01:50 under it, especially as the vast majority of people who have ever seen the film didn't
01:53 actually see it in 3D. Though Dread was, to its credit, shot in real 3D rather than being
01:58 post-converted, it's really the least interesting part of the entire movie. On its own merits,
02:03 it's a ludicrously entertaining, ultra-violent retooling of a classic comic property.
02:09 9. Telling Audiences Not To Spoil Its Big Secret – The Crying Game
02:14 When a movie hinges its marketing campaign on a big surprise, it's always worth being
02:18 wary, because this can often be marketing shorthand for a studio knowing that they've
02:22 got a dud on their hands and are trying to disguise it with an alluring mystery. Neil
02:25 Jordan's iconic 1992 thriller The Crying Game was memorably sold on the strength of
02:30 its big twist, with trailers telling audiences that nothing is as it seems, while posters
02:34 quite emphatically calling it "a movie everyone is talking about, but no one is giving away
02:39 its secrets". It was a brilliant marketing hook that absolutely worked, making the film
02:43 a sleeper hit at the box office before it received six Oscar nominations.
02:47 But beyond the marketing centred on just one aspect of the story – a twist that we won't
02:51 reveal here in case you haven't actually seen it still – The Crying Game is an exceptionally
02:55 crafted and frequently surprising piece of work that's by turn exciting and unexpectedly
03:00 affecting. In retrospect, you can't really blame Miramax for clinging to the most attention
03:04 grabbing aspect of the film, but the big reveal has been so widely dissected and parodied
03:08 in general culture that it's easy to forget that there is a superb film unfolding behind
03:14 it.
03:15 8. The Mystery of 'What is the Matrix?'
03:17 The Matrix
03:19 Not entirely unlike The Crying Game, the marketing for The Matrix focused on its focal enigma
03:23 – 'What is the Matrix?'
03:25 The original teaser trailer quite ingeniously showed off a flurry of stunning shots from
03:29 the film with absolutely no context whatsoever. No dialogue from the movies, no voiceover
03:33 narration, nor any text to speak of. The trailer ended by directing the viewers to whatisthematrix.com,
03:39 a website that actually didn't do a whole lot to demystify what audiences had seen,
03:43 but only sent them further down the rabbit hole of mystery. This approach could have
03:48 easily backfired, or been a cover to compensate for a film that didn't make a lot of sense,
03:52 but The Matrix of course became a massive word of mouth hit as viewers told their friends
03:56 about it. As Morpheus himself says, "You really do have to see it for yourself."
04:00 The Matrix was one of the first films to take full advantage of the internet's potential
04:04 to help sell a movie to the entire world, and in this case it helped that the movie
04:07 also happened to be a stone-cold masterpiece in its own right.
04:11 7. Releasing the trailer without a title, or much other information.
04:15 Cloverfield
04:16 No filmmaker does the "What's in the box? What's in the box?" quite like J.J. Abrams,
04:21 who as a producer of 2008's monster movie Cloverfield spearheaded a marketing campaign
04:26 centred around what audiences didn't know. In July 2007, the iconic teaser trailer for
04:31 the film was put in front of screamings of Transformers, confirming the existence of
04:35 an unseen monster, but in a radical move, didn't even give away the movie's title.
04:40 The teaser release caused a feverish buzz online, and fans speculated on whether or
04:44 not it might be a live-action Voltron movie, or a new Godzilla film, amongst many other
04:48 things. The anticipation reached a fever pitch thanks to an extensive viral marketing campaign,
04:53 including a complex alternate reality game, and a passionate fan community that entertained
04:58 every last possible fan theory. The kicker, of course, is that Cloverfield actually ended
05:02 up living up to the astronomical levels of hype, delivering an uncommonly diverting riff
05:07 on both the found footage and monster movie genres.
05:10 As much as Abrams is rightly pilloried for his deference towards mystery-infused marketing
05:14 that the projects themselves don't often quite live up to, Cloverfield largely delivered
05:18 the goods.
05:19 6. Making Audiences Demand Its Release - Paranormal Activity
05:23 Paramount's handling of the original Paranormal Activity is nothing short of marketing genius,
05:29 emphasising the supposedly real nature of its scares, but even more brilliantly, focusing
05:33 on the scarcity of available screenings. Paramount slowly expanded the film's release in the
05:39 US and around the world, first showing it in a number of college towns where they recorded
05:42 audiences' reactions, which were then memorably shown in the movie's trailers.
05:47 As word of mouth from preview screenings began to spread, Paramount insisted that audiences
05:51 had to go online and demand screenings in their city, and if it received a million demands,
05:56 the film would roll out nationwide. FOMO, or fear of missing out, is one of the most
06:01 compelling psychological phenomenas that can be exploited when marketing pretty much anything.
06:05 Nobody likes to feel like they're missing out on what everybody else is talking about,
06:09 and it worked perfectly here. Paranormal Activity ended up playing wide in the US and around
06:14 the globe, where it grossed an unthinkable $193.4 million against its mere $15,000 original
06:21 production budget. Better still, it felt like a massive breath of fresh air for the found
06:25 footage genre at the time, and though its many sequels soon enough ran the formula into
06:29 the ground, the original's lo-fi inventiveness still makes it hugely watchable even today.
06:34 5. Pretending it's all about Liam Neeson punching wolves – The Grey
06:39 The trailer's for Liam Neeson's 2011 thriller The Grey, selling it as an existential meditation
06:44 on grief and man vs. nature that actually is, but rather promoting it as a film where
06:48 Neeson just punches a wolf. Given Neeson's prior reinvention as an unexpected action
06:53 hero, the film's marketing team couldn't resist but lean into it and place excessive
06:58 focus on an apparent showdown between Neeson's hero John and a wolf. The trick worked well
07:03 enough given that The Grey easily tripled its budget at the box office, but it also
07:06 racked up a so-so B-minus cinema score, which fell well below Neeson's more typical action
07:11 joints, suggesting audiences had been misled about what they were seeing. It's frustrating
07:16 that the marketing was so desperate to misrepresent the film as a more conventional action flick,
07:20 because aside from all that nonsense, it's extremely well-crafted and is a surprisingly
07:25 affecting drama about man's survival against the elements.
07:28 4. Circulating Copies of the Cursed Videotape Without Context - The Ring
07:34 The marketing for the 2002 Hollywood remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring was
07:39 absolutely genius. Copies of the film's infamous cursed videotape were mailed out
07:44 to video rental stores and even placed in random locations, such as atop of people's
07:49 cars, with the tape containing no explicit references to the film itself. Even TV spots
07:54 which showed clips from the tape didn't name-drop the movie's title until much closer
07:58 to release, but combined with the number of impressively convincing fake websites about
08:02 the movie's events, word of mouth quickly did the rounds about The Ring. It would have
08:07 surprised absolutely nobody if the remake turned out to be a soulless, cynical cashing
08:11 in on the Japanese original that used clever marketing to distract from a very poor product.
08:15 So it's a pleasant surprise that Gore Verbinski's The Ring is genuinely good. Hell, it's a
08:20 great horror film. Beautifully filmed, superbly acted by Naomi Watts, and absolutely living
08:25 up to the chilling legacy of its lower-budget predecessor, The Ring 2002 is basically the
08:29 standard-bearer for any English-language remake of an international horror film.
08:34 3. Exploiting the Audience's FOMO - Avatar
08:38 When people express surprise that James Cameron's Avatar grossed $2.847 billion, despite leaving
08:44 no cultural imprint, they clearly don't remember how cleverly the highly-anticipated
08:49 blockbuster was marketed. Buzz around the film had been building for years, focused
08:53 on the mystery of Cameron's new IP and the innovative new technology that he'd developed
08:58 to bring his vision to life. And of course, this was Cameron's first film since Titanic
09:02 that was released an entire 12 years earlier, which was enough to make it an easy sell to
09:06 audiences.
09:07 Given that we live in an era where most huge movies are wildly overexposed in their marketing,
09:12 Avatar was a major breath of fresh air. The first official still wasn't released until
09:16 about four months prior to its release, and the first trailer just a few days later. The
09:21 trailers ultimately didn't give away much at all either, focusing instead on a strange
09:25 new world, as well as the eye-popping visual effects and Cameron's legacy of classic
09:29 films. FOMO was heavily leaned into, marketing it as a must-see 3D event that everyone would
09:35 be talking about. And they certainly were, for a few months at least.
09:38 Yet as fashionable as it is to rag on Avatar today, it's still a mesmerising feat of
09:43 cinema in a lot of ways, taking a simple, elemental story and encasing it in one of
09:47 the most spectacular technological flexes Hollywood has ever seen. If you genuinely
09:52 think that Avatar 2 is going to be a box office flop, be prepared to eat a healthy serving
09:56 of humble pie.
09:57 2. Convincing People It's Actually Real – The Blair Witch Project
10:02 The horror movie marketing campaign to rule them all must surely be The Blair Witch Project.
10:07 After the found footage film's premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, it was quickly
10:11 acquired for distribution and became an intensely buzzy title as its release approached later
10:16 that year. This was in large part due to the film's groundbreaking viral marketing campaign,
10:21 which began months before its premiere and played itself 100% straight. Above all else,
10:26 the film's website, trailers and posters suggested that the film's three main cast
10:30 members were actually missing and that the film itself was a real found recording. The
10:34 studio even went to the extent of having the actors be listed as missing, presumed dead
10:39 on IMDb, and encouraging them to maintain a low profile during the movie's initial
10:43 theatrical run.
10:45 Released in 1999 when the general public was still relatively new to the internet, The
10:49 Blair Witch Project's fake websites were easily believed by many, allowing the unnerving
10:53 mystique of the titular entity to spread like wildfire. The result was a phenomenal return
10:59 on investment, as its estimated $300,000 budget netted a worldwide gross of almost $250 million.
11:06 On top of that, The Blair Witch Project is a terrifically terrifying piece of work, perfectly
11:11 exploiting the audience's fear of the unknown and letting their own imaginations do all
11:15 the heavy lifting. It's not for everyone, but it's perhaps the purest and most creative
11:19 entry into the entire found footage genre.
11:22 1. Urging Audiences to 'Hang On' for Stallone's Heart-Stopping Stunts - Cliffhanger
11:28 1993's Cliffhanger was understandably marketed on the full-throttle appeal of Sylvester Stallone
11:33 placing himself in high-wire peril for our entertainment. The trailers couldn't fixate
11:38 enough on shots of his life on the line, and most famously of all, making a frankly ridiculous
11:43 leap over a gorge accompanied by the memorable tagline of 'Hang On'.
11:47 Cliffhanger's award-winning marketing campaign belied the fact that it was also a surprisingly
11:52 good movie, making the most of its peak-era action star, unique setting, and sweaty-palmed
11:57 action to deliver a highly entertaining action flick. Cliffhanger went on to gross over $250
12:03 million worldwide against a $70 million budget, ensuring that it became one of Stallone's
12:07 sturdier hits of the 90s. And considering that it could have so easily been all sizzle
12:11 no steak, it was refreshing to see a Stallone tentpole that backed up its flashy marketing
12:16 with strong filmmaking craft.
12:18 And there we go my friends, those were 10 movies that are actually great besides the
12:21 marketing gimmick. I hope you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about
12:25 it down in the comments section below. As always I've been Jules, you can go follow
12:28 me over on Twitter @RetroJay with a zero, or you can swing by Live and Let's Dice where
12:32 I do all of my streaming outside of work, and it'd be great to see you over there my
12:35 friends. Before I go though, I just want to say one thing. Hope you're treating yourself
12:39 well with love and respect my friends, because you deserve all of the best things in life,
12:43 and do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise, alright? You're a massive
12:46 ledge, now go out there and smash your life goals today. I believe in ya. As always I've
12:51 been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.