Metallurgy

Metallurgy is the mythical science of turning Lead into Gold. Everyone from the wizard Merlin to inventor/artist Leonardo Da Vinci has attempted it in some form or another, but it took two guys making a tiny, experimental, independent film to pull it off.

In the past few weeks, The Blair Witch Project has taken North America (and soon the world) by storm. A film which cost a mere $35,000 to produce looks like it’s well on the way to the $100 million mark. If the film succeeds in hitting that mark (and it isn’t slowing down any time soon), it’ll become the most profitable movie of all time. That isn’t counting the other revenues that will be coming in.

When Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez set out to make their experimental film, I doubt they had any idea it would make any money. At best I’m betting they were hoping it would recover its nominal production costs.

When the film was selected for the Sundance Film Festival last year, it became the surprise hit of the show. The midnight screening was an instant sellout, and the film had easily the biggest buzz around it of any film shown. Seeing the potential for an amazing hit, Artisan Entertainment wisely snapped up the distribution rights for $1.1 million.

When Artisan paid that much for Blair Witch, several analysts thought they were a little crazy. After all, this was a small horror film, shot mostly on video (with some 16MM footage) which did well at a film festival, but didn’t seem like the kind of thing to play to mass audiences. The filmmakers, I’m sure, were very happy with the deal. With the kind of buzz the movie was generating, they could probably get their million dollar investment back, but the odds of actually turning a profit were pretty slim.

Artisan was a lot smarter than people thought.

The Blair Witch Project probably would’ve faded into indie film oblivion had it not been for a very deliberate, very concentrated marketing plan on the part of Artisan. Blair Witch is a low budget film, so the marketing campaign would be low-key, but that didn’t mean invisible, it meant the Internet.

Blair Witch already had an Internet site, so Artisan wisely took it over. They ran with the “is it real or not?” idea, and marketed the film as a documentary. Only if you looked closely could you tell the film was a work of fiction.

The second phase of the marketing campaign was a limited release roll out. Instead of behaving like most studios, and unveiling the film for audiences in New York and LA, they decided to release the film in very few theaters across North America. This created a “hot ticket”. People who got in to see the film were so hyped about actually having a ticket that the movie could’ve been Godzilla and it still would’ve gotten good buzz. Luckily for the movie going public, Blair Witch is no Godzilla.

They let the movie run in those select theaters for a few weeks, and then rolled out the movie nationally along with a modest newspaper and television advertising campaign. They also ran cross promotions with a number of cable stations, offering prize pack giveaways consisting of things like hats, T-shirts and posters. It all added up to a box office tally of $50 million so far, and much more to come. The last time I heard buzz like this about a film, it was Titanic. I’ll go on the record here, and say the $100 million estimate is low. It won’t break Titanic’s $600 million gross, but it will do much better than $100 million. It’ll easily surpass the total box office gross of Wild Wild West, and could approach the numbers of the Mummy and the Matrix. Pretty impressive when you consider that production costs on Wild Wild West were $175 million, the Mummy $80 million and The Matrix $65 million.

Artisan hasn’t been letting the tie-ins fall by the way side either. There’s no Blair Witch Happy Meal, but there are posters, T-shirts, hats, a related television special and a forthcoming book. And because the film was mostly improvised, there’s a ton of extra footage for the inevitable DVD release. And lastly, it was announced today that the filmmakers have already submitted treatments for two prequels and two sequels to the Blair Witch Project. The irony is that because of the hype, the Blair Witch Project has become exactly what it shouldn’t be: A summer event movie. Artisan Entertainment and Haxan Films will both become very rich companies off the back of this film. And don’t forget that all three stars of the film were not paid up front. They were instead offered a percentage of the back-end gross of the film. All three of them will be millionaires when this thing is done, and will probably receive residual paychecks for the rest of their lives.

Sadly, the success of The Blair Witch Project may be its ultimate downfall. The movie has received so much press, and so much good hype now that it can’t possibly live up to audience expectations. Couple this with the fact that many people are not prepared for the shaky, amateurish production of the film, and that equals the beginnings of a backlash. The movie will polarize people, much like that other blockbuster with the big boat, and people will either love it or hate it. Still, no matter how you slice it, Artisan and Haxan have managed to do what many deemed impossible. Turn Lead into Gold.

Last week’s quote of the week was correctly answered by two people at almost exactly the same time. They both correctly identified the quote as being from Wes Craven’s classic horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street. The people with all the answers were Ben Menix (yes, the same guy who came up with a title for this column) and Sean DeWitt (who got last week’s quote right, as well).

In talking about genuinely scary movies last week, one of the suggestions I got from many readers was The Changeling. I hadn’t had the opportunity to watch this film previously, and the title was a turn off for me. It sounded like another damned body snatchers movie, but boy was I wrong. It’s essentially a haunted house tale, and it stars George C. Scott. Very creepy stuff, and if you went to The Haunting looking for a scare, I’d highly recommend renting this one to help you get over the trauma. This weekend brings yet another scary film to theaters, Bruce Willis’ The Sixth Sense. This film has literally popped up out of nowhere, but it looks interesting. I’ll be trying to see it on Friday night, so I’ll let you all know what I think afterwards. The limited advance buzz has been very good, which makes its low key release all the more baffling. Maybe they’re hoping word of mouth will carry it?

This week’s quote is from yet another horror movie. This one is an old one, and a genuine classic. I have a funny feeling this one will probably throw some people off, but what the heck!

"I haven’t seen a damn thing! I just don’t like the way it looks."

If you know the name of the movie, email me at

ken@dvdfuture.com