Serenity: The Blog Experience

If you read any blogs, chances are you have seen discussion of the unusual marketing ploy for Serenity, the movie continuation of Joss Whedon's Firefly series. (The link above is for Daniel Drezner, but you can also check out Jacob Levy, Matthew Yglesias, or a bunch of links assembled by Glenn Reynolds.) Basically, a bunch of big bloggers (not including lowly bloggers like me) were invited to watch an early screening, as long as they agreed to write about it. No quid pro quo was present; writers were free to trash the film.

I love this idea, and think it could work for any film that's not a typical Hollywood blockbuster. Any film without a big initial profile could greatly benefit from this type of attention (as long as the film is good enough to not be universally reviled). 163,000 page hits a day for the Instapundit? That's pretty far-reaching free advertising!