The Hype and the Hoopla of a Real Premiere . . . Virtually

It seemed, at first glance, like a typical Hollywood premiere. Spotlights beamed into the night sky, photographers gathered around the theater entrance, limos pulled up and celebrities made their way onto the red carpet, fans crowded the sidelines, straining to catch a glimpse of their favorite stars.

But this was no ordinary premiere. In fact, it wasn’t even real.

Instead this event took place only on computer screens around the world in an online 3-D virtual space set up to premiere the sci-fi thriller “The Thirteenth Floor.” You didn’t have to be on the Hollywood A-list to get an invitation either: Any fan with a connection to the Internet could stand--in a virtual sense--on the red carpet and even toss questions to the film’s stars or its makers.

The online gala for the Columbia Pictures/Centropolis Entertainment film occurred late last month in lieu of a traditional premiere for the movie, representing the next step in the trend of online interactivity being incorporated into movie premieres. As far back as 1996, E! Online presented a live Webcast from the Los Angeles premiere of “Evita.”

Since then, other entertainment Web sites, including AOL’s Entertainment Asylum and newcomer ReelPreviews.com, have also been offering fans live coverage and interactive, real-time chats with those involved in the film during major movie premieres, including most recently “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.”

Celebrities Give

Their Answers

Moving the festivities completely online--which matches the virtual reality story line of “Thirteenth Floor”--allowed participants to see arrivals of celebrities (represented by what are called “avatars” or virtual versions of the stars) and chat online live with the actors and filmmakers, who typed in their answers at computers from various locations.

“One of the things that is very attractive about a virtual premiere is that it means that someone in Wyoming can in his own way attend a premiere and chat with celebrities,” said Josh Gordon, who produced the “Thirteenth Floor” premiere and Web site. The event was a joint venture between Centropolis and Activeworlds.com, a company that builds virtual reality Web sites.

Bradley P. Sexton, chief executive of ReelPreviews.com, notes that when his company provided a live Internet broadcast from the May 16 Los Angeles benefit premiere of “Phantom Menace,” more than 100,000 people logged on to the site in its first day online. Some participants wrote questions for the film’s stars to be posed by teen hosts Ben Savage (“Boy Meets World”), Mila Kunis (“That ‘70s Show”) and Vanessa Lee Chester (“The Lost World: Jurassic Park”). “Our attitude is, this is what people want, this is what people are looking for,” Sexton said.

E! Online is slated to present interactive Webcasts from Tuesday’s cyber-premiere of “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” (The film opens Friday.) E! Online will feature live celebrity interviews, chat, a “Babes of Austin Powers” screen saver and a 360-degree robotic camera, allowing viewers to pan and zoom on the events.

During the summer, both E! Online and ReelPreviews are scheduled to cover the June 28 premiere of “Wild, Wild West.” ReelPreviews also plans to provide coverage of the June premiere for “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.”

In addition to serving as a way to reach international audiences, online premieres can provide a cheap alternative to lavish premieres, which can cost as much as $100,000, according to studio sources.

“At some point, how do you distinguish one movie premiere from another?” said Dean Devlin, who came up with the idea for the “Thirteenth Floor” premiere but didn’t work on the movie. (His filmmaking partner, Roland Emmerich, was one of “Thirteen Floor’s” producers.) “From a producer’s point of view, you spend a lot of money on them, and you get very little ink nowadays.”

Devlin and Emmerich have been on the cutting edge of merging movies with the Internet since 1994, when they launched the first movie Web site for their film “Stargate.” Subsequently, the two formed Centropolis Entertainment and then Centropolis Interactive, which produces Centropolis.com, an advanced sci-fi site.

Some Visitors

Got Lost Early

Although accessing the “Thirteenth Floor” virtual premiere site was relatively simple, non-Internet-savvy visitors found the technology difficult and time-consuming. Because a number of people had never downloaded a program off the Web, some users got lost at an early stage, Gordon said.

Those who successfully installed the software could access the premiere, then as “tourists,” they could choose one of two avatars (a man in a tux or a woman in a gown) and select from a range of motions, including waving, blowing a kiss, bowing--even dancing the macarena--in a sense becoming their own animated character moving through a virtual world.

Participating in the red carpet chat were “Thirteenth Floor” actors Craig Bierko, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gretchen Mol and Dennis Haysbert, co-producers Roland Emmerich and Ute Emmerich and director Josef Rusnak.

Avatars created in the likenesses of Melanie Griffith, Antonio Banderas, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Martin Lawrence, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Will Smith arrived and waved at the crowd, but did not participate in the chat because their real-life counterparts were not really “there.”

Several Hundred

Fans Logged On

Several hundred fans took part in the hourlong chat room event. When the red carpet portion ended, fans could enter the virtual theater, chat freely and wait for a QuickTime version of the film trailer to download. Initial reaction to the event online was mostly enthusiastic--’I love you Will,’ one fan gushed at the avatar of Smith.

However, the excitement and attendance dropped off as users became frustrated while waiting for the trailer to download or confused about where to go to see it play, although the production team relayed instructions and directions during the event, Gordon said.

Since the “Thirteenth Floor” premiere, Centropolis Interactive has been contacted by other film studios interested in doing virtual premieres, Gordon said. Columbia Pictures, which released “Thirteenth Floor,” seemed pleased with the virtual premiere, though the movie itself fared poorly at the box office.

“We gained insight into how we could do it better, and I think it might be fun to do this in conjunction with other events--maybe to do a virtual reality premiere in conjunction with the real premiere or with a film festival,” said Ed Russell, a publicity executive with Columbia. According to Gordon, Centropolis will use virtual premieres to launch its future films.

“It’s a win-win situation,” Gordon said. “You open up the possibility of exposure to the movie to the entire world, whereas a premiere for a movie is such a local event. Why wouldn’t you give your film that exposure if you had the means to do so? And besides, it’s just really fun.”