Watchmen, the movie, is generating quite some buzz online, not only among those who loved the graphic novel by Alan Moore. What is really at the core of the discussion is Warner Bros attitude towards spontaneous (and positive) word of mouth around the opening titles sequence released last week with authorization. Well, WB did not like the move by yU+Co, and has "kindly" asked all the websites that posted the video to remove it immediately. Strange but true, the video is almost impossible (but not completely impossible :) to find. Does this mean entertainment corporations are getting more and more powerful? Or maybe bloggers & co. have lost a bit of their confidence?
My first reaction is to criticize WB for the silly move, but then a doubt started rising in my mind. Was this just a smart PR move to drive more attention around the movie? Who knows. But my opinion is: never play with fire.
Taking a different angle on the Watchmen online marketing strategy, I can tell you there is also quite a rich website to visit.
The navigation interface is not very smart, as users have to guess they have to click on "menu" to open it (it isn't just a title over the characters names!). But if you find your way, you can easily spend five minutes browsing all the content.
There is also an iPhone application to download but, as usual, it is available only for the US market. Even if I learnt the trick to download it from Italy, I'm just too lazy to spend some time to change my settings to try it...
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