The latest episode of the XMen, Wolverine Origins, leaked on the internet a month before its official release and 100,000’s of copies find their way through bittorrent websites.
Of course I’ve downloaded it and thought that well used, this kind of leak can be turned into a brilliant marketing that everyone can apply.

It’s an unfinished copy without most of the special effects. It’s called a workprint. However it’s the feature length story.

It’s a very interesting film because you follow the engaging story and when a scene is roughly rendered, it just remind you it’s a film, “kind of endearing, actually”.

It’s different than seeing the special effects DVD extras because they are shown out of their context (not within the story).

It’s a great experience to understand how a film is made especially because it’s unfinished and you see it BEFORE the finished feature. It’s like being part of the process.

The Fox studios are sending the FBI to punish the “bastards” who stole the film.

It doesn’t really matter if it’s a true or false leak (maybe it’s a genius buzz plan form the Fox).

What matters is this leak shows how you can interact with your audience at an earlier stage of the production.

Nobody’s fooled anymore by special effects. The younger audience can see the wires and green screens even when they have been removed.

What matters and will always matter is the story told.

Today the principal strategy of studios is to keep the story secret up until the official “show time”.

This is changing.

The theatrical “show time!” and first week end opening gross margins are not driving any more the success of a film.

Especially when the most viewed TV watched in the world is YouTube.

Next blockbusters will be released on the Internet. Not in the theatres.

They will cost a fraction of what cost a film made by a studio.

Not only because there is more techie savvy users around and with a bunch of stolen software you can actually build the same effects.
But also because there is more people around who are learning how to tell a story and keep the audience engaged.

They use the most powerful medium in the world to tell stories to a large audience is the Internet. It allows you to do things that never been done before.
This is not an easy work, but the tools are widely accessible.

Cinema in 3D, HD are just a special effects for story tellers. Mastering the multimedia is their next big thing. Some call it “screen literacy”.

Blockbusters success will be calculated by the number of people who watched it AND liked it.
A far more precise metric.

Now if you have an audience of fans and can’t make money out of it, hire a business person and he will teach you how to do it.

On the meantime the audience evolved, expect more complex stories (as “Tony” shows us in Duplicity).

A film is built by its story and the expectations of the audience.
You keep the audience engaged using reversals (surprises) and other sparkly wow! effects.

But you still keep the surprise secret otherwise it’s not a surprise anymore.

Really?
So the question can be : how do you keep a secret?

What is keeping a secret then?

Not telling everyone?
So it stay in your head.
Big deal.
Not only nobody knows about it but it’s just doesn’t exist!

A secret start to exist from the moment you talk about it.

There is only ONE reliable way to keep a secret:

Find a way it’s the own interest of the person you’re telling your secret to keep this super extra confidential secret within a set of people who wants to talk about it.

And what you’ve created is three communities of people :
- the ones “who knows” ;
- the ones “who wants to know” ;
- the ones “who don’t care”.

What the Fox did is they’ve released (intentionally or not) the super secret of the film to people who wants to know about it.
Now they got thousands of people “who knows”!

The problem is they focus on the wrong secret: the story of the film. But in fact the secret is about on how the film is made.

They don’t know what to do with that capital of users (they should turn them into fans).

This is why the leak maybe a mistake otherwise they would have thought of a strong call to action at the end of the “experience”. Expecting this audience who viewed this draft to go an see the film is a weak call to action.

But what if you reward those viewers?

Those are not the one who are 100% sure to buy the figurine or a special edition poster.

Those are the ones who will buy a super gadget that emulate what has been used to make the film. By example a replica of the Wolverine blades (but not a toy).

Those are the people who want to “show off” to their friends and make a special mini Wolverine film using the same techniques.

George Lucas understood this by letting the fans playing with the light sabers and flooding the Internet of duels that have been viewed more times than the last cartoonish episode of Lucas films!!

Why Marvel is so successful with their super heroes?
Because they always looked for new artists to draw their characters. They’ve released a book called “Draw the Marvel way”.

Those people “who knows” your secret are the ones ready to talk about it with passion. Just make sure they talk about the right secret.

YOU too can find a way to capitalize on people who engaged with your story at ANY stage and whatever the way it has been told.

And that can be a brilliant marketing.

Here some pictures…