To the delight of tech-fantasy movie fans, Warner Bros. Saturday will release a 10-minute segment of its upcoming animated film The Iron Giant. But it won't be in usual trailer form -- this preview is via the World Wide Web.
The story of a huge robotic alien and a boy -- the subject of major online buzz in recent months -- will be broadcast on the film's Web site starting at 5 p.m. PDT.
See also: Phantom Trailer II on Web- - - - - -
Director Brad Bird selected his favorite scenes for the cybercast. The film will also screen in limited release on Sunday before it opens nationwide on 8 August. The cybercast may be the first example of a major studio release airing on the Internet prior to its general release in theaters.
The Iron Giant has attracted a big following from among Internet movie fans at dozens of sites in recent months, ranging from The Reel Site to Rotten Tomatoes. Some have christened it the first hapless-alien film to hold a candle to E.T.
"This is the first film I have seen that has honestly learned everything you should take from E.T. ... but then improved on every single point," said reviewer Harry Knowles.
Warner Bros. is thrusting the film into a summer glutted with product -- 14 titles will be released in the first week of August alone. It will have a tough time measuring up to Disney's Tarzan, which has raked in US$155.3 million since it opened on 15 June.
Still, The Iron Giant is likely to be at least a moderate success for Warner Bros., which has seen a string of animated efforts (The King and I, Camelot) tank at the box office.
That's good news for other studios trying to break Disney's stranglehold on the animation business.
"I don't know any studio in town that isn't rooting for this film, except perhaps Disney," said Robert Bucksbaum, president of movie market researcher Reel Source.
The key question for the film is whether it will grab the imagination of those who aren't Internet-savvy or attracted to Pokemon games.
Don Buckley, senior vice president of theatrical marketing and new media at Warner Bros., isn't worried.
"When I saw this movie, I saw it with a bunch of adults between 22 and 40. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when I left," he said. "This is a movie that you can take a date, you can take your kids to. It doesn't matter."
The giant, who is predictably set upon by the military and others who don't understand his potential for good, could be seen as a parable about the right and wrong uses of technology, Buckley said.
Set in 1957, at the height of the Cold War, the story is designed to resonate with a generation that wondered whether it would be blown to smithereens by an atomic bomb.
"The giant is capable of wonderful, whimsical behavior, but when provoked, when attacked, it's capable of quite the opposite," Buckley said.
In cybercasting a chunk of The Iron Giant, Warner Bros. is betting that any potential piracy that occurs will be more than counterbalanced by the buzz the broadcast will inevitably create.
The attitude stands in contrast to Lucasfilm's previews of The Phantom Menace, which carefully avoided cybercasting more than a trailer for the film.
