From the Silver Screen to a monitor near you
Irish Independent, Monday, 30 July, 2001
“Anyone over the age of 15 will remember the excitement of going to the cinema and getting a glimpse of the movies that were opening in the coming weeks. Those two-minute trailers were the film studios big chance to entice you back to the cinema, and they usually managed to achieve this by showing the best two minutes of a movie.
Today, the marketing executives in Hollywood are no longer relying solely on those precious minutes when people were distracted by their popcorn or the people talking in the next aisle. They have, very successfully, harnessed the Internet – not only to promote movies that are launching next month but to get fans fanatical about movies that haven’t even begun shooting.”
“The Lord of the Rings doesn’t open in cinemas until the end of the year but already it’s estimated over six million Tolkien fans downloaded a trailer of the movie within a week of it going live last year – 1.7 million within the first 24 hours. Hundreds of unofficial sites are also doing their bit to promote the movie.”
“The Lord of the Rings“
www.lordoftherings.net
You’ll certainly need a bit of time to find your way around the site, simply because there is so much going on. Newcomers to the whole Middle-Earth phenomenon might just be a little confused – to say the least. But if you feel left out that you’re not one of the millions who scrambled to download the trailer, pop along and get a feel for what is undoubtedly the only movie people will be talking about over the coming months – apart from Harry Potter, of course.”
