>>Needless to add that mudslinging always sells - so that too adds to the
>>marketability of the intellectual product.
>>
>>Wojtek
Well, Moore knows how to work it to his advantage. I guess you gotta admire him for learning from the flak he's already received. He used it as 'data' and managed to turn it to his advantage. This is a pretty interesting piece from a Hollywood marketing perspective:
Top 10 things Moore did right with 'Fahrenheit'
By Martin A. Grove Michael Moore: Michael Moore may lean left politically, but it's really what he did right that put "Fahrenheit 9/11" on the boxoffice map.
Looking at how Moore orchestrated his film's blockbuster success it's clear he did at least 10 key things that other filmmakers can learn from. Here's a quick look at what immediately comes to mind:
1. He recognized that being controversial would help, not hurt, at the boxoffice. In the past, controversy was a negative when it came to movies. Distributors didn't like controversial films because they were worried theater owners wouldn't play them. The prospect of pickets and angry crowds outside theaters to voice their protests was seen as a big negative.
Moore, however, saw that times have changed. Controversy no longer sparks lines of pickets outside theaters. What it now does is generate media coverage of whatever it is that's controversial about a film. This is the same valuable perception Mel Gibson had with "The Passion of the Christ." Moore and Gibson both benefited from years of filmmaking experience that put them in the media spotlight. In Gibson's case, as a superstar who's had to endure a near lifetime of press junkets, he knew firsthand what the media can do to build a career and to make people want to see a film. As for Moore, he's been a passionate muckraker for years and between the marketing of "Roger & Me" and "Bowling For Columbine" he learned more than a few things about what media attention can do to create audience interest in an otherwise obscure film.
With "Fahrenheit," Moore realized that the controversy built into the movie would make it part of the national conversation. In other words, it would become grist for news pages, editorial pages and op-ed pages. The great advantage in being spotlighted on these pages is that unlike a newspaper's entertainment pages or a newscast's Hollywood segment, there aren't any competing messages about other movies to be found here. There's no clutter the way there now is in every routine channel for movie marketing. Without any clutter, the marketing message gets right through.
While a controversial movie does instantly alienate some people who reject its premise from the get-go, it also attracts others who support the idea. More importantly, it creates curiosity among the larger audience of people who are as pollsters say "undecided." This group isn't driven away by controversy, but is, in effect, sucked in by it. They want to find out "what it's all about." They want to decide for themselves. They approach it from the self-satisfying point of view of researching all sides of an issue in order to decide where they stand on it. What Moore understood is that if they're going to check things out, people first have to buy tickets.
Besides stimulating boxoffice business, controversy has additional value in today's age of the Internet. Countless outposts in cyberspace have been focusing daily on "Fahrenheit" for months. All of the news coverage that runs about the film on the wires, for instance, gets recycled on any number of Web sites covering politics, movies, social issues, etc. The real payoff comes when people start spoofing something like "Fahrenheit" with editorial page cartoons or by posting short films on the Internet. This happened earlier this year with "Passion" and it's been happening a lot lately with "Fahrenheit."
One particularly good spoof, by the way, was just posted on filmmaker Bret Carr's Web site in which Carr has some fun with a chubby, baseball cap wearing Moore look-alike. In "Fahrenheit 6911," Carr as his alter ego Lou Benedetti worships Moore, but accidentally steals his girlfriend thanks to his humanistic approach to politics. That leaves the spoof's Moore disgruntled to say the least. Carr, who did a terrific "Passion" spoof called "The Passion of the Heist," is a talented actor-director who's just starting to screen for distributors his "Rocky"-esque feature revolving around his Benedetti character called "The Gospel of Lou." <...>
4. He aligned himself with the right distributor. One of the critically important moves Moore made was signing with Miramax to distribute "Fahrenheit" and to work, in particular, with the company's co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. As things turned out, having Weinstein and his co-chairman brother Bob as Moore's allies was the ultimate answer to Moore's problems. <...>
5. He knew exactly how to manipulate the media. If it weren't for Moore's skill at getting the media to do what he needs done, "Fahrenheit" would have wound up opening at 16 theaters in four markets with no marketing money behind it and no prospect of doing business. The media turned this film into a title with high awareness that typically results from $30 million marketing campaigns and extensive publicity junkets with big stars to entice the press into writing about their movies.
Moore realized that with politics at the heart of his movie he needed to break the story behind the film's distribution crisis in Washington, not in Hollywood or New York where most filmmakers would have done it. Not surprisingly, the first account of the problem Moore was having with Disney in terms of Miramax not being able to release his film surfaced on the front page of The New York Times with a Washington dateline. From there, it spread like wildfire throughout media around the world.
<...> 7. He exercised great timing. When they say that timing is everything in Hollywood, they're not kidding. Moore's sense of timing was spectacular in that he was able to generate a media frenzy about a week before his film was going to have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. By going public with his distribution crisis not at Cannes but a week or so prior to the festival, he allowed critically important time for the news to circulate worldwide and to be absorbed by the French public, which would in turn create the next essential wave of enthusiasm for "Fahrenheit." <...>
9. He knew a ratings appeal would mean more headlines. After "Fahrenheit's" success at Cannes there was no question that a new domestic distribution deal would fall into place the moment that Disney signed off on dumping the picture into new hands. That, in turn, led to the distribution team of the Weinsteins, Lions Gate and IFC Films. Before they could release the movie, of course, they needed to get a rating from the MPAA. When that rating turned out to be an R -- predictably for brief language violations and brief scenes of brutal violence -- Moore didn't do what other filmmakers would have done. <...>
10. He realized the marketing of his movie would impact on voters as well as moviegoers. Like him or hate him, Moore is passionate about his cause, which isn't what it typically is for a filmmaker. His real goal isn't to sell movie tickets so much as to help defeat George W. Bush this November. To that end, Moore realized that by marketing his movie the television spots that air would not only be seen as the usual commercials for a new film opening soon, but that their content would be able to sway voters to vote against the candidate Moore wants to see lose.
Using footage of Bush telling reporters first about the need to stop terrorism and then asking them to watch him swing his golf club, Moore has been able to create a visual icon that works more against Bush than any commercial the Democrats could possibly create. People watch this spot because it's a movie ad, but what they get out of it is more than why they should see the movie. They also get Moore's message about why they should vote against Bush. The "Fahrenheit" ads may well be the most effective political ads the country has ever seen.
The squabbling over the ads continues even as I'm writing today's column. The latest controversy involves the MPAA complaining that ads quoting critic Richard Roeper as saying "everyone should see this film" are inappropriate because the film's R rating means that not "everyone" should see the picture. Whether it really matters if that particular quote is used in the ads isn't important. What matters is that once again the media is focusing on "Fahrenheit." It's another excuse to write about it or talk about it and that, in turn, heightens the public's awareness of the film. With most movies, the impact of the marketing money declines after the film has opened. With "Fahrenheit" Moore is still keeping the picture right in the media spotlight even after its smash opening.
As the film expands to as many as 2,000 theaters by July 9, Moore can be counted on to maintain the media's interest with accounts of its solid boxoffice performance and success across the country. Of course, by Nov. 2, when Americans are going to the polls, all this fuss over the movie will have quieted down. Or will it? With Moore's great sense of timing "Fahrenheit" should be coming out on DVD then and the media will have a whole new reason to focus on it again.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/grove_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000556834
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'