Relativity Media and IMDb, the #1 movie website in the world, have announced that IMDb is hosting the official movie website for Intrepid Pictures’ The Raven, the stylish, gothic thriller starring John Cusack as infamous author Edgar Allan Poe, releasing nationwide by Relativity Media on April 27, 2012. The innovative, cross-platform campaign also includes integration on Amazon’s Kindle with Special Offers and a photo competition on the Amazon-owned Digital Photography Review website.
This is the first time a movie studio has collaborated with IMDb to create a highly contextual, customized campaign in which IMDb’s title page serves as the official movie website for a major theatrical release. The Raven’s title page on IMDb has already amassed more than 20,000 fans that have “Liked” the film via social plugins. The Raven is currently ranked #10 on IMDb’s MOVIEmeter chart. As part of this innovative campaign, Relativity Media has driven all of The Raven’s online and offsite campaign media, including the movie trailer, to the film’s official website on IMDb which is located at: The Raven.
“IMDb is the online destination for movie fans, so we were delighted to be the first to tap into their rich landscape of assets, including Amazon’s Kindle and Digital Photography Review, to execute this broad, multi-platform campaign,” said Terry Curtin, Relativity’s President, Theatrical Marketing. Curtin added, “We were able to naturally leverage IMDb’s SEO rankings, page views, authority and built-in fan base for our film and connect The Raven with its online audience.”
“We applaud Relativity for embracing innovation and being the first to collaborate with IMDb to create this new solution for the industry,” said Col Needham, founder and CEO of IMDb. “As the #1 movie website in the world, IMDb is the leader in movie search results and has quietly amassed unrivaled fan bases for every upcoming release – passionate, savvy fans who have opted in to receiving updates about the films they like. Rather than investing time and resources into building a dedicated movie website and then trying to drive fans there during the theatrical release window, we encourage studios to utilize IMDb’s film title pages as official movie websites and fan communication channels throughout the lifecycle of their films, including preproduction and theatrical, streaming, DVD and Blu-Ray release announcements.”
The Raven’s official site features exclusive content, trailers, television spots, cast interviews, photo galleries, cast and crew information, social plugins, related news, user generated lists, message boards, trivia and more.
Additional campaign elements include a Kindle with Special Offers integration the week of release and a recently completed The Raven photo challenge on Digital Photography Review. The Kindle with Special Offers execution launched yesterday, and links users to the array of Edgar Allen Poe books available for free download in the Kindle store. Members of dpreview.com entered The Raven photo competition by submitting their own photographs inspired by one of the four weekly themes – Midnight, Entombed, Gothic and The Raven.
Description: The macabre and lurid tales of Edgar Allan Poe are vividly brought to life – and death – in this stylish, gothic thriller starring John Cusack as the infamous author. When a madman begins committing horrific murders inspired by Poe’s darkest works, a young Baltimore detective (Luke Evans) joins forces with Poe in a quest to get inside the killer’s mind in order to stop him from making every one of Poe’s brutal stories a blood chilling reality. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, which escalates when Poe’s love (Alice Eve, She’s Out of My League) becomes the next target. Intrepid Pictures’ The Raven also stars Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Faster). Directed by James McTeigue (V For Vendetta) from a screenplay by Hannah Shakespeare (Loverboy) & Ben Livingston (Bruce Almighty), The Raven was produced by Film Nation’s Aaron Ryder, Intrepid Pictures’ Marc D. Evans and Trevor Macy.
