Tuesday, August 10, 1999
Scaring up success
'The Blair Witch Project' casts its spell on young movie-goers
BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Call it a phenomenon.
Call it a juggernaut.
Call it the Little Movie That Could.
Originally shot for about $30,000, The Blair Witch Project has earned more than $50 million in four weeks.
During its first week playing in the Tristate, the film sold out virtually every screening at The Esquire in Clifton and Kenwood Showcase Cinemas — both of which showed it on two screens.
Getting a ticket became a little easier after it expanded to eight screens Friday, when National Amusements began showing it at the Oakley Drive-In and on three screens at the Florence Showcase.
The movie is smashing records for per-screen averages; in its first weekend of wide release, it scored $25,886 a screen, more than double the average take of Runaway Bride.
At the online auction site eBay, collectors bid up Blair Witch memorabilia to dizzying prices, including more than $10,000 for an old 16mm camera used to shoot the black-and-white portions of the film.
Cinematographer Jeff Barklage of Milford says the camera has not been manufactured since the late 1970s and normally would be worth no more than $3,500, even in flawless condition.
“People use them for doorstops,” he says.
Bidders also kept up a lively trade in posters (one sold for more than $500), pins, comic books and other promotional items.
The movie owes much of its success to the Internet and to the elaborate official site, www.blairwitch.com, which developed a large cult, especially among college-age fans.
Young people are driving its box-office rise too; a firm that surveys movie-goers leaving theaters found that people 35 and older graded the movie F, while 18- to 24-year-olds gave it a B+.
Meanwhile, a half-dozen or more unofficial fan (and anti-fan) sites have sprouted. The movie even has inspired a parody site, “The Blair Warner Project,” (www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/3027/Blair.html), based on characters from the Facts of Life television series.
Artisan Entertainment bought Blair from filmmakers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick for about $1 million, then spent $300,000 to prepare it for release and $10 million to market it. The firm expects the film to rake in more than $100 million.
While Mr. Myrick and Mr. Sanchez have said their next film will be a comedy, Heart of Love, Artisan officials say they will meet this week to consider a sequel that would appear in theaters next summer.
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