Rhune
ForumsNet Administrator
    
 
Gender: 
Posts: 292
|
 |
Internet trailers ignite Gibson's 'Passion'
« on: Oct 15th, 2003, 11:15am » |
 Quote  Modify
|
Internet trailers ignite Gibson's 'Passion'
Tuesday, October 14, 2003 Posted: 9:26 AM EDT (1326 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- The well-documented controversy swirling around Mel Gibson's upcoming movie "The Passion of Christ," formerly known as "The Passion," has movie fans so curious that they've been crashing Web sites in their search for bootleg trailers.
Harry Knowles at AintItCoolNews.com said his site was the first to post a "Passion" trailer about three months ago, though it didn't last long there.
"In one day I got 350,000 downloads of that sucker," Knowles said. "I had to take it down because it slowed down server traffic. My site ground to a halt."
Although he took the trailer off his site, it was not before others took it from Knowles for their own movie fan sites. And several religious-themed sites linked to those new sites that featured the trailer.
Knowles won't say where he got the trailer, one that Gibson's Icon Prods. described as having been made for internal purposes and for screening to private groups. Icon said an official trailer for consumers is due out "by the holidays."
In fact, Icon executives are fairly aloof about answering questions that suggest any kind of organized Internet campaign is under way to boost interest in the movie, preferring instead to characterize it as a "Blair Witch"-like grass-roots phenomenon.
"The demand for the trailer shows an incredible groundswell of interest in the 'Passion,"' Icon president Bruce Davey said.
"It's a great trailer," Knowles said about the one he posted in July. "The best I've seen this year. Probably too graphic for audiences."
Knowles said that only about a quarter of those seeking the trailer at his site were actually able to watch it. "The faster connections were bandwidth hogs, and the slower connections timed out."
Several Christian Web sites also had linked to AintItCoolNews, including Harvest.org. After Knowles removed the trailer from his site, Harvest posted it at its. So, in a bit of turnabout is fair play, Knowles put up a link to Harvest. A spokeswoman from Harvest said the trailer has been taken down, though scenes, with the permission of Icon, can be viewed there.
Richard Morales, who runs TheMovieBox.net, also posted the trailer for a brief time.
"I got too many hits," Morales said. "My bandwidth couldn't survive it."
He still links to another site where the trailer is featured, though, and he says that 10,000 people a week, or 30% of his entire audience, click on that link. That's a lot, considering that there are 120 trailers to choose from at TheMovieBox.net.
Morales said that at one point when the site hosted the trailer, "CNN[.com] put a link up. It was very cool."
"People are passionate about this film," Icon's Davey said. "When's the last time you saw a film trailer go straight from the Internet to CNN?"
Davey and Gibson will be interested to learn that, like Knowles, Morales was impressed with the trailer. "It looks brilliant," Morales said. "Totally edgy. I don't know where Mel got it from. It's phenomenal. One of those movies that has got to be seen -- like 'Schindler's List."'
At Yahoo! Movies, consistently one of the most trafficked movie-related sites on the Internet, Greg Dean Schmitz said "Passion" is tracking huge.
Schmitz, who heads Greg's Previews of Upcoming Movies for Yahoo! Movies, said that of the 100 or so feature films scheduled for release during the January-April time frame next year, "Passion" was the No. 1 visited page in August and No. 2 in September.
According to Schmitz' site, Gibson hopes the film will score a North American distribution deal in time for a wide release just before Easter.
One simple way to see a "Passion" trailer online without dealing with pop-up ads or links to other sites is to go to passion-movie.com, a fairly extravagant creation that bills itself a fan Web site not affiliated with Icon or the film.
|
Home
Help
Search
Members
Chat
Member Map
Login
Register
Reply
Add Poll
Notify of replies
Send Topic
Print