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Its huge box-office success, threadbare production values and offbeat approach to the horror genre have generated widespread discussion.

Made at a cost of $30,000, it returned $48 million in its first week of wide release.

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Peli applied that lesson years later to promote “Paranormal,” which used a “Demand It” campaign in college towns: Students who wanted to see the movie needed to petition Paramount Studios through the movie’s website.The 'Blair Witch Project' is the most profitable movie in American history. “When you connect fans together on the internet, their shared passion deepens.” “I think ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was the first example of what the power of fandom would do in Hollywood,” said Monello, now the founder of Campfire, an entertainment-marketing agency. That particular strategy may be hard to duplicate now, but the deeper lessons about connecting with fans in a media-driven age are still relevant. “They really created this immersive world that if you had the time and wanted to go into it, it would help you with the suspension of disbelief.” Lasting lessons

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“It was the story of the serial killer, and it was extremely well done,” Peli said. The “Curse” film was not presented as fiction. It added to the myth by using interviews and archival material they had cut from the movie. Add to that the rise in reality TV, fake news and phenomena like “ deepfakes,” which use real images and voices to completely fabricate videos, and it becomes hard to imagine a hoax-based movie campaign ever again gaining that kind of currency.Ī week before the feature’s wide release, Myrick and Sánchez debuted a separate faux documentary called “The Curse of the Blair Witch” on the Sci Fi Channel (known today as SyFy). The arrival of YouTube in 2005, which made video-sharing a global, social and economic enterprise, has deepened that blur. In the 20 years since the film’s debut, that landscape has shifted profoundly. In some ways, “The Blair Witch Project,” with its blurring of fact and fiction, helped create that very media landscape that would preclude its viral success today. I think at some point, the industry became a victim of itself.” A narrow window “If you betray that, the audience is going to feel that. “Who is filming why are they filming why does it need to be found footage?” said Peli.

The movie’s direct sequel from 2000 flopped, as did the third entry, in 2016 (neither was directed by Myrick or Sánchez) both struggled to create a genuine sense of terror without the mystery of authenticity that so electrified the original.Īlthough the numerous “Paranormal Activity” sequels didn’t match the quality of the original, either, Peli, who has stayed on as a producer for the series, made sure they at least answered a set of questions integral to the subgenre. “Everyone now can afford a camera - has a camera in their pocket - and can, if they think out of the box properly, do something very new,” said Aneesh Chaganty, the director of the breakout thriller “Searching,” from last summer.Īttempts to turn “The Blair Witch Project” into a franchise were less successful.

(Hi8 is analog video, used in a hand-held camcorder.) Their surprising success inspired many young filmmakers to view amateur equipment as an opportunity, not a limitation. To make the film, Myrick and Sánchez used only Hi8 and 16-millimeter formats. “All of a sudden, you could edit on your computer.” Audiences seemed willing, he added, to accept “these new types of media and new types of stories that were being told.” “For us, video was about to become as good as film,” Sánchez said. It also allowed for an extremely low budget. That convergence primed viewers for a low-fi aesthetic that, in the right hands and with the right idea, could lead to something novel.

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By 1999, reality TV programs like “Cops” and “The Real World” were on the rise, and the internet was providing a conspiratorial and conversational hub for its users. But the “Blair Witch” creators understood there was a fresh appetite for the concept. Film historians credit Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 thriller “Cannibal Holocaust,” which similarly featured the disappearance of a young movie crew, as the first. “Blair Witch” didn’t invent the found-footage movie.