Silent buzz

Earlier this week, “Empire” magazine’s Web site displayed a series of eerily placed playing cards that began to reveal themselves slowly. Eventually, the cards were replaced by a brand-new image of Heath Ledger as the Joker in “The Dark Knight.”\nThe picture is yet another step in the film’s excessive “underground,” viral marketing campaign. Throughout the summer, the Web site www.whysoserious.com ordered fans to complete tasks online that unlocked small nuggets of information about the film. \nAnd while this seems to be working for “The Dark Knight,” it’s solely because the film is highly anticipated even without the viral marketing. However, it seems more and more movies that would be easily forgotten are trying to concoct an uber-creative marketing strategy that will allow them to obtain surprising box office success. The bad news is, it’s not really working.\nFilms have tried this experiential marketing in a few different ways. Some have attempted to springboard off of their cult status online before the movie is ever released (“Snakes on a Plane”); others have used cryptic, yet gripping taglines (“The Matrix”); and even more have tried shocking and eye-catching posters (“Captivity”). The main problem is that not one film has been able to put all the elements of buzz together to create a sustainable marketing push that puts the film over the top. \nBut there may be hope for that just yet: “Cloverfield.” Or “01-18-08.” Or “Monstrous.”\nIt’s this type of shadowy behavior that we’ve seen from the beginning with the J.J. Abrams-produced monster movie that arrives in theatres in January. \nThis summer, a mysterious two-minute clip depicting the destruction of New York City via a handicam hit theaters and the Internet, which caused an eruption on blogs and talkbacks. People began dissecting the trailer just as the film’s creepy official Web site posted two random pictures that were movable. \nAs Abrams noted at Comic Con, the title of the film and footage of the monster will not be available for a while. Posters were released with three different titles, and MySpace pages were created for all the film’s major characters. All the while, the speculation continued throughout the summer. Finally, a new trailer was released in front of “Beowulf” a few weeks back, with more of the same footage, only this time the title was revealed as “Cloverfield.” So even when Abrams does release information, it’s not really information.\nAlthough the people behind this film have to be really excited about the marketing they’ve done so far – aside from print ads, they seem to have captured all the mediums – they have to aware of the cautionary tales that have built up a lot of hype and then completely failed. “Snakes on a Plane” was a massive hit with a segmented audience online, but that never made a difference because no one else came to see it.\nThe biggest worry that the producers of “Cloverfield” should have is whether or not their film is actually any good, because the buzz is only going to take them so far. And based on the past films that have used buzz to cover up their flaws, I’m guessing they’ve got a lot to worry about.