Movie Website Updates for June 3 - June 9
June 9, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner, Stealth - Official Site.
The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D
The Barnyard
Batman Begins
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Capote
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Dark Water
The Devil's Rejects
Dorian Blues
Fantastic Four
Four Brothers
High Tension
The Honeymooners
Howl's Moving Castle
Hustle and Flow
The Island
The Last Days
Lila Says
McLibel
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Open Season
Parineeta
The Perfect Man
Pure
Rebound
Rent
Rize
Serenity
Stealth
Tideland
Waiting
The rest of the features were added to the site including the usual suspects. I like the style of the site, but it lacks extras to make it really stand out. (Character Bios are the most unique feature the site has.)
Just the poster so far, and it's not even a large image of the poster.
Another text interview was added to the site, so were some extra images. The Comic section is purportedly online, but when I click it nothing happens except the FX plays.
Typical Wellspring movie site.
The site has most of the usual features, a small amount of animation and interesting background music. However, it doesn't have the trailer and the film opens tomorrow.
Placeholder site with just an image gallery.
There's a new trailer, but it's not on the site. You have to surf over to Apple.com so see it. It's much better than the teaser trailer, but anything without that song would be an improvement. I'd rather undergo dental surgery with anesthetics than listen to that theme song again.
An interactive site that is good at setting the mood, but too much of the exploration is scripted.
The Rejects Rampage game was added to the site. It's your basic shooting gallery where the targets shoot back. It's fun and fits in with the rest of the site.
Simple site with the usual features, but doesn't have a polished look.
I got the game to work, almost. I can't play the version on the US site, but the non-North American site works. Like I thought, it's very much like the game on Elektra's Official Site with one exception, it's not a free for all but the Fantastic Four vs. Doctor Doom. Very fun.
The flash site is online, but there's not much content so far, just the synopsis, the trailer and some downloads. There are also a few facts about Detroit, like the number of serious crimes committed in the last year.
The movie opens tomorrow but the Tension section is still marked coming soon. There were several extremely gory clips added, which are probably all the gory clips in the entire movie.
There have been no real changes in a long time.
No changes since the site first went live.
The flash site is up and while it has all the usual features there are not enough extras to make the site standout in a crowded field. The only unique features are a look at some Memphis spots the writer / director hangs out and a Pimp My Ride game.
A new behind-the-scenes clips was added to the site, but the narration was… to be blunt, lame.
The format of this site is quite unique and gave the site a huge potential. However, the actual execution didn't excite me. Not enough actual content meant there wasn't enough interactivity.
Small site with just the synopsis, cast & crew, (no bios), image gallery and trailer. The only extra is a text interview with the director.
This site has the typical information for a documentary site but doesn't have a polished look. I also wanted a bit more background information than the synopsis and the trailer provided, but it did work in getting me interested in the movie.
This is a tentpole release, one of the most anticipated releases of the summer. But quite frankly the site doesn't live up to the movie. The four clips were added to the site, and they do a reasonable job at selling the picture, arguably better than the rest of the site does. Still, overall I'm disappointed.
The teaser trailer is on the site. Well, not really. It's actually just a link to Apple.com. And it's not actually a link, but a broken link. How sad is that? Here's the real link. As for the actual teaser trailer, it didn't increase my interest in the movie at all, so on that criteria it's a failure.
Interesting site that doesn't have all the features normally associated with movie sites, but has some extras. For instance, of all the cast and crew only Vinod Chopra gets a bio, but there are 5 character bios. There are also clips to half-a-dozen or so songs from the movie.
The clips were added to the site, which is a bit of a surprise since clips are usually not added till after the movie opens in the theatres. There are six clips, most of them are scenes that are touched on in the trailer, but that's to be expected. Also added was the soundtrack section, which is just a link to the store. The only feature still marked coming soon is the What I Like About You game, (which is mostly likely another personality quiz.)
No changes in a while, but it's a good site nonetheless.
I have nearly zero expectations for this movie, but the flash site is surprisingly well done. (Although it does have a very similar feel to Dodgeball's Official Site. The site has the usual features, (synopsis, production notes, cast & crew bios, image gallery and trailers) but also has plenty of extras. Extras include characters bios, and a passing game, but the best feature is the commentary by Amy and Annie.
The flash site launched this week, but its pretty bare bones at the moment. But as the site states, there are more than 200,000 minutes till the movie opens so there's plenty of time to add more content.
The flash site launched this week, and while much of the information was on the old placeholder site, there are a couple of new additions. The best addition is the Battlezone where you can choose one of 15 clips for each of the Clowns and the Krumps and after watching them vote for your favorite.
More tickets for the Can't Stop the Signal previews were released. They'll probably be sold-out by the time I publish this column, but maybe some here will get lucky. … Nevermind, just checked back and they are all sold out. That's the third round of previews for the movie that have sold out in just a few hours.
The full site is up, and it's excellent. Or at least the game is excellent. It's one of those top-down scrolling shooters and probably the best pure action game I've played on a movie website in a very long time. And it's very addicting, which is why you'll see my handle, (BrotherAlpha) currently at the top of the leaderboard. The rest of the site pretty good as well with another, 'Caught on Video' clip and several military briefings, which give some interesting background information but tend to ramble. The E.D.I. search engine is also a fun feature. By typing in keywords you can get information about actual stealth systems, or if you type the correct keywords you will access the sites usual information. There's even a little inside joke for those of us that remember WarGames. Add it all up and you have the winner of the sneaky Weekly Website Award.
Two more video clips were added to the site, one showing Dell's house on Stage 4 and the other talking about reshooting a scene with a wreck of a bus.
Just the message board so far with the trailer marked coming soon.
Submitted by: C.S.Strowbridge
Filed under: Movie Website Updates, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman Begins, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Fantastic Four, Open Season, Four Brothers, Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, The Island, Stealth, Rent, Capote, Serenity, Dark Water, Hustle & Flow, The Devil’s Rejects, Rebound, The Perfect Man, Waiting..., The Honeymooners, Hauru no ugoku shiro, High Tension, Rize, Pure, Tideland, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D