Sunday, June 25, 2000
Hollywood Is More Than Just Browsing
Studios buy into Internet marketing, even though it erodes their control. Why? Because they have to.
By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
When Ron Howard had the first screening last month of his Jim
Carrey-starring comic fantasy "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole
Christmas," the director didn't invite a household name like Roger Ebert.
He showed the movie to Harry Knowles, a tubby 28-year-old film fan who
lives in the back bedroom of his father's house in Austin, Texas, where
he operates Aint-It-Cool-News.com, a Web site best-known for printing
"reviews" of unfinished Hollywood films posted by fans who've attended
industry test screenings.
Howard flew Knowles to Los Angeles on May 30, where he saw "Grinch" in
the plush executive screening room at Universal Pictures, the day before
the studio held a research screening of the film in San Diego. Howard
wasn't the only A-list film director to give Knowles a first look at an
upcoming film. DreamWorks held an exclusive advance screening of
"Gladiator" for Knowles and 200 friends in February. Knowles was the
first outsider to see Paul Verhoeven's new thriller, "Hollow Man." Before
Michael Bay even began shooting "Pearl Harbor," the director showed
Knowles test images of his special effects.
It wasn't so long ago that Hollywood wasn't so wild about Harry--he
was branded a menace by studio marketers and filmmakers outraged by his
Web site's negative reviews of unfinished films being shown at test
screenings. In a memo to studio marketers this March, National Research
Group chief Joe Farrell, the czar of Hollywood test screenings, labeled
Knowles a "self-righteous monster." But today, Hollywood is eagerly
courting--or could it be co-opting?--this Web-based Frankenstein.
In fact, the wooing of Harry Knowles offers a telling example of how
the movie business is jettisoning its all-controlling marketing
philosophy and scrambling to get up to speed with the
everybody-knows-everything-at-once atmosphere of the Internet.
The rules of the Hollywood marketing game are being reinvented
overnight. Box office is booming thanks in part to an explosion of media
coverage of movies, in traditional outlets like newspapers and magazines
as well as a fast-growing body of Internet fan, news and gossip outlets.
But the boom in Internet movie coverage has been a double-edged sword for
filmmakers and movie marketers, rife with as many pitfalls as
possibilities.
"The Internet can be a scary thing because it allows people to get
information that's not going through the studio filter," says DreamWorks
marketing chief Terry Press. "It's full of uncontrolled gut opinion that
can disrupt your marketing message. Any studio can take a dog and make it
look funny [in a TV spot]. But if more and more people have access to
information that tells them, 'We went to a sneak preview, and it's a
dog,' then you've got a real problem."
In other words, it was risky for Howard to show "Grinch" to Knowles;
in fact, the director didn't believe there was anything to be gained by
having a test screening of the film in any public setting. But Universal,
which had invested upward of $100 million in the film, strongly suggested
that the director test "Grinch." Howard had his doubts. The film was
missing most of its 500-odd eye-popping special-effects shots. In their
place were blue-screen backgrounds and shots of crew members on ladders
holding up large backdrops.
Howard knew that it might be hard for audiences to fully suspend
disbelief without seeing the completed effects. But Howard also knew it
was inevitable that one of Knowles' spies would get into the screening
and judge the half-finished film on Aint-It-Cool-News. Last year, Howard
had a private screening of a rough cut of "EDtv" for 30 select people in
New York. A review was on Aint-It-Cool-News the next day. So after
consulting with Universal, Howard took a calculated risk: He set up a
private screening for Knowles. If Knowles was going to run a review from
some kid who sneaked into a screening, why not get it from the horse's
mouth?
Actually, Howard had already broken the ice: Knowles had been the only
outsider allowed to visit the closed "Grinch" set during filming last
year, a decision inspired by Howard's hope that after a friendly visit
Knowles would agree not to post unauthorized photos of "Grinch" star Jim
Carrey in full prosthetic makeup. "I made a personal plea for him not to
spoil things," Howard says.
The plea worked. "I don't like to spoil things either," Knowles says.
"So I told Ron I wouldn't have a problem keeping the photos a secret."
When Howard invited Knowles to see the unfinished film, the offer came
with a condition: Knowles would agree not to write about it. However,
after Knowles saw it and liked it, he persuaded Howard to let him review
it. "I told them that if I thought the movie was awful, I wouldn't slam
it," Knowles says. "But it was so good that I said, there's no excuse not
to write about it--it's really a movie worth getting excited about."
Aint-It-Cool-News claims that it gets 2 million hits a day, including
legions of Hollywood insiders like New Line production chief Mike De
Luca, who says he visits the site every day. So it didn't take long for
"Grinch" to get a hot little buzz going. The day after Knowles' review
appeared, Howard says he was on the phone with director Cameron Crowe,
who'd already read it and said he was excited about seeing the film.
The episode speaks volumes about how Hollywood is learning to play the
Internet game. To some, this willingness to cultivate Knowles is simply
the studios' crafty way of tarnishing his credibility by transforming him
from an independent outsider into a coddled insider. Harry has already
had bit parts in movies like "The Faculty." He has been flown, at studio
expense, to the premieres of such films as "The Green Mile," "Armageddon"
and "Godzilla." To others, the industry's eagerness to befriend Knowles
simply underscores the importance the Internet has gained with Hollywood.
"The studios have always quietly brought Time and Newsweek in to see
work prints of films," says Imagine Entertainment President Michael
Rosenberg. "Twenty years ago people did the same thing with [former Los
Angeles Times film critic] Charles Champlin. But they all agreed that if
they didn't like the movie, they'd keep quiet about it. Today the power
is with some 14-year-old kid in a mall who happens to see the first
screening of 'Nutty Professor II.' And they don't keep quiet about it.
Because of the Internet, one kid sitting at his computer can unravel an
entire studio marketing campaign."