Commentary

Donnie Darko: Successful Entertainment Integration

This past week I attended the i20 event in Los Angeles and listened to a number of intelligent people, agencies, and entertainment companies primarily discuss the future of digital marketing. One of the topics discussed was how the movie companies are utilizing the Internet to promote and support their films. Being a child of popular entertainment, it is a topic that I find incredibly interesting.

I recently rented the DVD of "Donnie Darko," a movie that didn't do so well at the box office, but developed something of a cult following when it went to video. If you've seen this movie then you know how truly warped a film can be (I got around to seeing this movie rather late, admittedly, but I know a number of people who haven't seen it yet at all).

I won't ruin the plot of the movie here since part of the fun of the film is trying to figure out exactly what's going on, but I can say that when I originally viewed the movie I felt somewhat cheated. I had the feeling it was a good movie somewhere deep down, but I was completely dumbfounded as to what I'd just watched and I couldn't figure it out. Never having had that feeling after watching a film, I decided to immediately venture online and see if anyone else had the same experience I did.

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I checked the usual suspects and subsequently Googled the movie to see what I could find out. Almost immediately I discovered and visited DonnieDarko.com. The site was bizarre and eerie, but it was reminiscent of the movie.

The style of the site reflected exactly what I was feeling after watching the movie. It was well done and provides a very important example of how the Internet can be used as a tool to support a product viewed in another environment. The site is a maze, and the key to unlock its secrets comes from having seen the movie and searching for questions about what happened.

It's the type of synergy between online and offline entertainment that I think signifies the direction of where Hollywood should be going. After viewing the film and visiting the Web site, I was convinced this was one of the best movies I'd seen in the last few years. It is truly original and worthy of multiple viewings, which doesn't happen too often these days. It answered many of the questions I had, it supported and filled in the storyline, and made me appreciate the film in ways that I never would have been able to as a stand-alone entity.

The movie is one element of this column, but the larger, more important element is the experience in itself from an entertainment as well as a marketing vantage point. The movie was promoted in the typical fashion when it was in theaters, and it received minimal support when it arrived on DVD (and is receiving some marketing currently in preparation for the director's cut DVD which I also look forward to viewing).

I decided to see the movie based on reviews and mentions in entertainment magazines and on Web sites that I visited. My decision to see it was based on the fan community, not on the overt marketing of the film itself, but on the words of other people whose opinions might mirror my own.

The Google results showed the official site very high (No. 1 or 2 in search results) and there were more than 700,000 search results related to the movie. The buzz factor for the movie was what I found the most interesting as it seemed to be a prime example of the Web being used to further extend the experience of a film.

It was a part of the movie without which you couldn't possibly fully understand the plot. The site was not a marketing vehicle. It did not live on its own nor did it do a great job of selling the movie. You had to be convinced to see the film based on the experiences of other people and the site was just icing on the cake.

The idea here is that the Web site and the film are not stand-alone entities. They are co-dependent and necessary for one another. I haven't come across many films that have this relationship with the Web, and I think this is a sign of things to come.

Have you seen any other examples of this type of integration? Do you think they did a good job or a poor job? Let us know.

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