Was 'Paranormal Activity's' Trek Into Theaters a Viral Phenomenon or Just a Ruse?

Did audiences' word of mouth or marketers' sleight of hand help "Paranormal Activity"? (Paramount Pictures Via Associated Press)

By clicking on the "Demand It" button on the "Paranormal Activity" Web site, people provided Paramount with personal data, including their Zip codes and dates of birth, which helped studio execs determine which markets should get the film first and whether there was enough of an audience to justify putting it in hundreds of theaters. "The psyche around that [approach] is that they feel like part of the event, they feel like mini-producers of the event," says Jordan Glazier, Eventful's chief executive.

Those "mini-producers" got the ball rolling on Sept. 25, when Paramount opened "Paranormal Activity" in a dozen college towns and screened the film only at midnight. Tickets sold out. Social media sites lit up with stories of audience members being petrified, and that started generating clicks -- prompting Paramount to add late-night shows in more markets on Oct. 2 (including Washington), all without buying a single national ad on network TV.

But would Paramount have opened "Paramount Activity" nationwide even if online demand had stalled at, say, 800,000 votes? Colligan says no, that the studio would have explored a more modest way to expand "Paranormal's" reach instead of opening in additional markets where interest in the film hadn't been evident.

So maybe the real issue isn't whether Paramount truly put its release's fate in the hands of its fans. Maybe a better question is: Do average consumers even notice, or care, when a studio essentially uses them to sell their movie?

"I think savvy people 'check their brains' at the door for what is entertainment [especially of this nature]," writes Rob Kubasko -- a political consultant who commutes between Alexandria and Phoenix and was one of the 5,864 people who demanded to see "Paranormal" in the D.C. area -- in an e-mail. "Obviously, this was just a marketing gimmick. But it was a well-crafted one that allowed the viewer to 'play along.' "

Travis Hopson, another "demander" from Alexandria who has already seen "Paranormal Activity" twice, agrees. "There are plenty of occasions where there are movies I really want to see and I can't get them here to save my life," says Hopson, who works as a defense contractor by day and co-writes the movie blog Punch Drunk Critics on the side. "I like the fact that, even though I realize this is a big studio effort to get the movie some press and hype, the fact remains that if people didn't demand it, it wouldn't be here at all."

However it got here, "Paranormal Activity" seems likely to stick around a little longer. In theaters around the country -- including the AMCs in Georgetown and Tysons -- many screenings have been selling out. Given the interest, Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com's box office division, is closely watching what happens this weekend when the Scary Little Well-Marketed Movie That Could expands its reach.

"A lot of marketing is an illusion and we don't know if it's true," he says of Paramount's campaign. "Who cares? It's working."