How To Ruin A Viral (Part 2): Mess Up Dan Koelsch, June 3, 2009July 18, 2010 District 9 has a very versatile viral campaign encompassing two opposing forces, four websites, and the social networking world. Despite all this, many have complained about the viral not living up to its potential. Sure, all the pieces are in place, but Sony isn’t playing the game correctly. For instance, they went over 6 months without updating ANY of their viral sites. They set up this vast viral world and then abandon it for half a year. Maybe it was the economy, maybe they thought they started too soon, who knows. What matters is, people weren’t happy. Even when they start their viral campaign back up, Sony can’t win. Sony created a Twitter account on May 11th for the site mnuspreadslies.com. Seems reasonable enough, except that the name for the account holder was ‘Christopher’. The main alien behind the site was named George, so at first I, like many, though Christopher was another staff member (aka an alien) for the site. But as the weeks followed and Christopher tweeted more, it became clear that he was claiming to write blog posts on the site that had George as the author. Then Sony suddenly changed the author on all the posts to Christopher, likely as a way to cover their tracks, but they forgot something…to change the actual posts. Within many of the posts, the author would sign off as George, and that name is still there. The obvious explanation is that Sony has just f*cked up and is poor at covering their tracks. However, there are still questions. Why did Sony change the name? Are they really that careless? One, albeit far-off, explanation is that this is actually part of the viral. Somehow, Multi-National United has planted this “Christopher” to replace George, as a spy or something. It could even be a Marcus Wright (Terminator Salvation) scenario. This seems highly unlikely, as there hasn’t even been a whiff of a hint that this is the case. Just seems like reaching to stay oblivious to the obvious truth: Sony messed up. District 9 releases August 14th. See our District 9 page for more details. Editorials Features Viral Marketing District 9MNU Spreads Lies
New “AGM Heartland” Video Found? August 6, 2012August 6, 2012Almost two years ago, Neill Blomkamp, writer and director of viral-friendly District 9, made a short film that showed up in the iPad version of a Wired Magazine issue. There was a lot of speculation on what that video was for, but we haven’t heard anything from it since. Now… Read More
The Buzz: Channing Tatum, Noomi Rapace, “The Walking Dead”, “Star Trek 3” and More May 13, 2014May 13, 2014Today’s edition of the Buzz we cover Channing Tatum becoming a member X-Men, Noomi Rapace joins Will Smith in a variation of a X-Men movie, the first image of The Walking Dead season 5, and the passings of Alien designer H.R. Geiger and Search For Sugarman director Malik Bendjelloul. And… Read More
2012: First Clip September 5, 2009September 5, 2009Our friends at HeyUGuys have a new clip from Roland Emmerich’s 2012. Watch it here: Gotta love that Bentley voice-activation plug, eh? Other than that, I think I can safely say that we’ve never seen a destruction/apocalypse movie like this before. Emmerich went ice-age style with The Day After… Read More