The typical Web site for a Hollywood movie is a lot like a box of cereal. There's a list of ingredients, a brief write-up and maybe a contest or form to send in.
"The Blair Witch Project," however, showed that an inventive Web site can turn a little film into a huge one. Since then, a smattering of movie productions have used the Web to deliver not just trailers and cast bios but also original videos and animations that whet the public's appetite.
One recent example is the Web site for "The Center of the World," an adult-oriented movie due next month from Artisan Entertainment, the studio that distributed "Blair Witch." The film's adults-only site immerses visitors in the seedy, neon-lighted workplace of one of the movie's main characters, a stripper.
Director Wayne Wang, who also directed "The Joy Luck Club," shot footage specifically for the Web site, including an interactive conversation with an actress. Although her comments are canned, they're not the same for every visitor. Instead, her responses vary according to what visitors type during a simulated chat session.
This is true multimedia: using the unique properties of the Net and the theater to deliver different entertainment experiences. At the theater you watch the action from a distance, but on the Web you can become a participant.
Granted, the Net is handicapped because most consumers still use dial-up modems, which turn video into a herky-jerky slide show. But as the percentage of homes with high-speed connections rises, look for studios and filmmakers to mount more ambitious Web projects.
The growing popularity of DVDs also encourages the industry to develop more original, interactive content for movie-based Web sites. Once the film's theatrical run is over and the Web site shuts down, the original content can be recycled onto the DVD to boost sales.
"The Center of the World" is a movie for adults because of its subject: a dot-com entrepreneur who becomes obsessed with a stripper. Its explicit Web site puts visitors into the entrepreneur's shoes and challenges viewers to strike up a friendship with an exotic dancer at a virtual bar.
It's a game of arm's length intimacy, which is a central theme in the film, said Amorette Jones, executive vice president of worldwide theatrical marketing for Artisan Pictures Inc. "You're seeing some very provocative images, but you're definitely detached because you're not there [in reality]," she said.
