MOVIES—There’s nothing grassroots about the online marketing campaign for the sequel to the Blair Witch Project

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Last year, Artisan Entertainment released what would become one of the most bizarre film successes of all time.

“The Blair Witch Project,” shot on a miniscule budget, became not only a huge box office draw, but a cultural phenomenon. The film’s success it raked in $150 million in 1999 was largely credited to the film’s grassroots Internet marketing.

On Oct. 27, Artisan opens the sequel, “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.” This time, the use of the Net to market the film is hardly grassroots. It’s an orchestrated campaign.

“The Blair Witch Project,” for those who were on another continent in 1999, is a faux documentary, supposedly based on footage shot by three film students who disappeared in a wooded area near Burkittsville, Md., while researching a witch.

The documentary became less faux thanks to the filmmakers’ (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez) creative use of the Net. At www.blairwitch.com, users were able to view 16 hours of footage that added to the mythology of the film, and to the possibility that the myth was true. In addition, users were able to read the missing film students’ diaries, examine police photos and view interviews of grieving family members.

A franchise was born.

A kind of Web-launched cultural hysteria evolved, and that’s just what Artisan hopes to create again with its “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.”

This time around, though, the Web effort has little to do with grassroots and everything to do with glitz.

“It’s a much stronger marketing campaign this time,” said Hector Rojas, a creative director with Creative Domain, the Los Angeles-based advertising and design firm that Artisan tapped to design and produce the new www.blairwitch.com site.

“This time, the Internet is being used for its mass appeal,” Rojas said. “The site is huge. It has to be larger in scope because of the long-term franchise capability.”

The site, which Artisan dubbed “the official source of new and archival information about the Blair Witch phenomenon,” includes a searchable archive and timeline of the Blair Witch myth. Rojas and his team at Creative Domain update the site weekly, and will continue to do so with an eye toward the prequel, due out in 2001.

“We’re not fooling anyone this time,” Rojas said. “No one knew if the first movie was true or not. Artisan perpetuated that with the original Web site. This time, the site has to be different. It has to keep the devotees and bring in new ones.”

To do that, the site employs the latest Shockwave and Flash technology to give users the backstory and the chance to buy merchandise related to the new film.

And that’s not all. Artisan plans to launch www.blairwitchwebfest.com on Oct. 18. The “Web fest” will consist of 64 hours of high-tech programming, including live streaming concerts, celebrity interviews and film footage. Artisan partnered with Yahoo!, Amazon.com, DoubleClick and other industry heavyweights to produce the three solid days worth of Web programming.

While last year’s grassroots Web effort resulted in thousands of curious fans arriving weekly in Burkittsville, Md., the “Web fest” aims to lure crowds to the same Maryland woods for a concert by the rock band Godhead.

Artisan marketing executives would not comment on the Web marketing budget for “Book of Shadows” and declined to be interviewed for this story.

In a press release, Artisan claims its “Web fest” will be the largest live Internet event ever held.

“I think studios are spending more on their Internet marketing budgets, but their Web spending on specific projects is still modest,” Creative Domain CEO Albert Litewka said. “But the money has to be coming out of something.”

And it will continue to pour into Web campaigns, as studios set up sites that are simultaneously entertainment marketing and e-business, Litewka said.

That is certainly the case with www.blairwitch.com.

“The site was designed to not be tied to any specific movie,” Rojas said. “It’s the site for the mystique, the aura. It will accommodate any other (Blair Witch) movies that come along.”

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