Coming Soon to a Theater Near You, If You Demand It

If you have not yet heard of the horror movie “Paranormal Activity,” you will soon. It is about to become the first major studio film to be released nationwide as the result of online requests from the public.

The film is about a young couple that becomes convinced that a demonic presence lurks in their bedroom at night, so they decide to set up a video camera to catch it. The movie was shot on an extremely low budget of $10,000 and opened at the end of September with midnight screenings in just 13 small college towns.

From there, it has become a Web sensation, with chatter about the movie bouncing from Twitter to Facebook, spurring an upcoming nationwide release.

The company behind the viral buzz is Eventful, a venture-backed start-up in San Diego hired by Paramount Pictures, the movie’s producer. Eventful provides a service that lets performers ask their fans where they should appear. For between $30,000 and $250,000, Eventful builds and hosts a Web page where people can vote by clicking on a button that says “Demand it!”

Paramount promised to release “Paranormal Activity” in cities where enough people demanded it and nationwide if a million people demanded it. As of Friday night, it was close, with 960,000 demands.

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• Paramount’s ‘Paranormal Activity’ Pays Off (cinematical.com)
• Suggestion Powers ‘Paranormal Activity’ Phenom (abcnews.go.com)
• Movie Review | ‘Paranormal Activity’: Ghostbusters on a Budget: If Things Go Bump in the Night, Grab a Camera (movies.nytimes.com)
• Paranormal Activity Gets Wide Release, But Only If You Click (cinemablend.com)

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Tags: demonic presence, ghostbusters, horror movie, low budget, paramount pictures, paranormal activity, web sensation

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Communications, Innovation, NY Times, Shape of Things to Come?, disruptive innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.