Sony spins Web to pitch Spidey

The studio behind the multibillion-dollar “Spider-Man” franchise is doing some Web slinging of its own.

To snare outsize audiences for “Spider-Man 3,” which cost about $400 million to make and release, Sony Pictures cast its widest online promotional net ever, using the Web in ways that were unimaginable when the superhero first scaled the big screen five years ago.

The digital campaign -- ads on MySpace, studio-sponsored blogs, free online Spidey games, downloadable trailers -- heralds the Internet’s arrival as a bona-fide promotional tool for Hollywood and represents a shift in the allocation of dollars.

The reason is a no-brainer. “The Web,” said Jeff Blake, Sony’s head of worldwide marketing and distribution, “is a pretty economical way to reach moviegoers.”

The studio’s bet is that Spider-Man’s amplified powers on the Web will pay off -- and they had better. Director Sam Raimi’s dark tale about Peter Parker’s battle with inner demons cost $260 million to produce and about $140 million to release in 10,000 theaters worldwide.

To cover studio costs and give theater owners their take, “Spider-Man 3” has to gross about $800 million in worldwide ticket sales. The first two installments in the franchise proved phenomenally lucrative, collectively amassing more than $1.6 billion globally. And No. 3 set opening day records Tuesday in 10 of the 16 territories in which it debuted, including France, Italy and South Korea.

But in Hollywood there’s no such thing as a sure bet, so the studio has pulled out the digital stops.

Blake said a “substantial part” of the advertising budget had migrated away from newspapers to the Web. “The Internet as a marketing vehicle has grown in leaps and bounds,” he said.

These days, consumers increasingly go online to research movie times, read reviews and watch trailers. “Like a lot of advertisers, Sony is following the audience, which has preceded them onto the Web,” said Colby Atwood, president of Borrell Associates Inc., a media consulting firm. “They’re overcoming their natural inertia to change.”

While a newspaper ad or billboard can run nearly $100,000 and a 30-second spot on a hit TV show can set a studio back $1 million or more, the kind of Internet campaign that Sony is running (ads on heavily trafficked sites aside) can be relatively cheap.

What’s more, the Web gives Sony both the global reach of a mass medium and the ability, like old-fashioned direct mail, to zero in on particular interests, creating the opportunity to make intimate connections with a spectrum of consumers that includes geeky fanboys, action-film aficionados and admirers of star Tobey Maguire.

“It’s all about one-to-one engagement,” said John Lisko, head of media communications for Saatchi & Saatchi LA. “There’s no other medium that can give that level of information that quickly.”

For hard-core “Spider-Man” addicts, it can’t be too quick. They’re insatiable, and Sony is doing its best to feed them.

Some members of the Spider-Man Movie Network (established by Sony) spend hours every day debating (on a web- site maintained by Sony) whether the “Spider-Man 3” villain Venom spends enough time on screen and the limitations of the web slinger’s “spider-sense.”

The studio is constantly taking in what’s said about the movie on blogs and message boards so it can hone its publicity to satisfy even the most militant Marvel Comics fanatic.

In July, when a “Spider-Man 3” teaser trailer was released, the reaction to another villain, character Harry Osborn’s New Goblin, was negative. A lot of people thought he was fatally dull. So as part of a March 5 promotion during NBC’s hit show “Heroes,” Sony showed a 7 1/2-minute clip of the New Goblin in a new light, as a fearsome foe to the building-scaling hero.

“The feedback we got was tremendous, incredibly positive about Harry’s character because they got to see him in full action,” said Dwight Caines, Sony’s executive vice president of worldwide digital marketing strategy.

Hollywood started to exploit the Internet after the success of the 1999 mockumentary “The Blair Witch Project” illustrated the medium’s knack for creating virulent prerelease buzz. The film’s distributor, Artisan Entertainment, stealthily posted video and sound clips and fake TV news reports to perpetuate the notion that the filmmakers had disappeared, and had possibly died horrible deaths, during the shoot. The result: Huge crowds flocked to a crudely shot, low-budget film.

All the studios have been directing some of their marketing dollars away from traditional media outlets, primarily newspapers and to a lesser extent network television. Spending on Internet advertising rose from negligible amounts in 2002 to around 4% of promotional budgets last year, according to the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

But there is no official tracking of the resources devoted to Internet efforts that go beyond placing ads on websites. And it’s hard to attach a dollar value to the cool factor associated with using an animated image from the film as a signature when posting remarks on a Spider-Man Movie Network message board -- or exploring an interactive map of New York that pinpoints Parker’s high school and Otto Octavius’ lab.

Sony hasn’t given up on regular old advertising. It’s just doing it with a digital twist.

To woo women who might not be inclined to buy a ticket to a movie about comic book characters, the studio paid for a Valentine’s Day campaign on My- Space. It bought an ad on the home page of the hugely popular social networking site that showed an image from the film of Maguire grasping for an engagement ring that’s just beyond his reach. The tactic promoted a sweepstakes with his-and-her diamond rings the prize and, Sony hoped, tugged on the heartstrings of young females.

“We were very concerned about girls,” said Valerie Van Galder, Sony’s domestic marketing chief. “Superheroes tend to skew more male.”

At the same time, Sony isn’t turning its back on TV advertising, Hollywood’s most dependable marketing outlet. The studio uses the power of one medium to buttress another.

The ads that ran during “Heroes,” which like the movie deals with people with extraordinary powers, sent viewers to nbc.com, where they could see scenes from the movie. That material could be downloaded and posted on sites where like minds congregate, such as YouTube and MySpace.

“It was designed for consumers to share it and pass it along,” said Sony SVP Caines.

Young moviegoers today don’t want to be treated as passive observers but as collaborators.

“That’s the only way to reach these consumers, these teenagers,” said Mark Deuze, a professor at Indiana University who studies the media landscape. “Not by telling them to see a movie but finding ways they’re going to tell each other.”

So Sony made sure that online fans would be the first to read snippets from “The Spider-Man Chronicles,” producer Grant Curtis’ forthcoming book about the making of the film, on the studio’s movie blog.

Sony’s Face of the Fan online contest gave 20 people free tickets to the April 16 world premiere in Tokyo, home to Sony’s corporate parent. In partnership with Target stores, Sony is giving five fledgling filmmakers the opportunity to produce “webisodes,” or short videos, to be featured on a bonus “Spider-Man” DVD sold at the retailer in November.

Sony hopes that “Spider-Man 3” ticket sales equal or surpass the performances of the original and the first sequel -- which together generated hundreds of millions of dollars in DVD sales, beyond their stellar box-office take.

What are online fans saying? A reporter’s informal survey of blogs and chat rooms found some counting the days to the U.S. opening and others fretting that there would be too many villains vying for screen time. Some seemed to be holding their breath that the movie would live up to expectations and propaganda, theirs and Sony’s.

“Can’t we move the opening date up a week or two so we can stop seeing all the hype for the movie?” Spidey fan Thomas Lindaman wrote on his Bottom Line blog, where he muses on popular culture. “I was in Wal-Mart today and I swear I saw Spider-Man 3 Bug Spray on sale.

“Throw in a Spider-Man 3 George Foreman Grill and a package of Spider-Man 3 Kosher Hot Dogs and we will have officially hyped everything possible with this movie.”

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claudia.eller@latimes.com

dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com

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The Web campaign

The film’s website (www.sony.com/Spider-Man) has had more than 100 million visits since it was launched in 2002 for the first “Spider-Man” movie. Spider-Man Movie Network, created in 2004 for the release of “Spider-Man 2,” enables fans to communicate about the release of the third installment.

Grouper / Face of the Fan contest: Two Spider-Man Movie Network fans become online correspondents to break “Spider-Man” news and information about events and special promotions.

nbc.com: On March 5, immediately after the broadcast of the hit show “Heroes,” Sony premiered an exclusive clip from “Spider-Man 3” in streaming high-definition video.

Veeker: Fans can shoot and send “Spider-Man”-themed mobile video with their cellphones, sharing their creations with other Spider-Man Movie Network members through world@veeker.com.

msn.com: MSN covers “Spider-Man 3” with talent interviews, photo galleries of publicity events and coverage of “Spidey week” events in New York, Monday through today, and the film’s New York premiere.

mtv.com: mtv.com webcast live, streaming video of last week’s British premiere across Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

Yahoo: Yahoo Movies features a character gallery of Peter Parker’s world and the “Heroes” scene in QuickTime HD.

Ice.com: Themed to Valentine’s Day, users could send their own superhero a valentine and enter to win his-and-hers diamond rings. Sony bought ads on MySpace to promote this sweepstakes.

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Source: Times research

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Super box office

Despite its high cost, the “Spider-Man” franchise is one of the most lucrative ventures in the movie business.

Budget

Estimated cost: $200 (in million) (2004 original); 175 (2002 sequel)

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Gross

Domestic box office: 373 (2004 original); 404 (2002 sequel)

Foreign box office: 375 (2004 original) ; 399 (2002 sequel)

Total box office: 749 (2004 original); 803 (2002 sequel)

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Source: Times research