Great shots of the X in the previous posts!!
Here's an article from today's WSJ that discusses how WB is trying to reduce Matrix excitement to prevent overload, and keep audiences primed for the November release:
'Matrix' Makers Hope to Set A Hollywood Marketing Mold
The Goal: Sell Enough Tie-Ins to Recoup Costs, But Without Alienating Film's Fans
By JOHN LIPPMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
'The Matrix Reloaded" is about a future world in which the human race fights for its survival against sentient machines.
But for AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. studio, the "Matrix " series is itself the machine -- one aiming to set a new paradigm for Hollywood.
Considerable attention has been focused on "Reloaded," which opens Wednesday night in more than 2,000 theaters around the U.S. and officially opens Thursday. The first "Matrix " appeared in 1999, becoming a surprise hit with devoted fans and creating an aesthetic that has been widely copied. The two sequels -- "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions," to open in November -- are now the most anticipated films of the year, with "Reloaded" expected to set box-office records for an R-rated movie.
But the movie's producers, Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures, a unit of Village Roadshow Ltd. of Australia, want more than just ticket sales. Wednesday night's showing marks the launch of what they call a "multiple platform" strategy including a videogame, DVD, CD and, eventually, online gaming.
Yet amid mounting preopening hype for "Reloaded," the producers are trying not to overload potential viewers. The reason: Once fans see the second "Matrix ," the studio needs to hold their interest until "Revolutions" arrives in November. Warner is aware it must pace its DVD and game releases in coming months to avert "Matrix " fatigue.
To that end, the studios are limiting the licenses and merchandizing deals that typically back big Hollywood franchise movies. "This is not a cookie-cutter, flavor-of-season type of movie," says Bruce Berman, president of Village Roadshow Pictures, which is financing half of the two sequels' roughly $350 million production costs.
Matrix has only a handful of product licenses compared with more than 100 for Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter" films. Promotional tie-in partners for "Reloaded," which help pay for additional advertising, include Samsung, Heineken beer and PowerAde sports drink, but exclude fast-food and convenience-store chains.
The strategy reflects the wishes of the film's makers, brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski. "The filmmakers did not want to alienate their fan base by selling out," Mr. Berman says. "Matrix " fans who feel they discovered the film and helped make it a hit could be turned off by too much commercialization of the "Matrix " mystique.
Of course, Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow hope the films' roughly $500 million in production and marketing costs will pay off. Timed with the opening, "Enter the Matrix ," a videogame by Atari, goes on sale for $49.99 Thursday. Atari, a unit of Infogrames Entertainment SA of France, already shipped four million videogames for the launch, a company record. In addition, a $20 million Japanese-style animated DVD with nine separate "Matrix " stories will be released in June. Called "The Animatrix," Warner Bros. has positioned it as a bridge between the game and the movie that helps explain the complex "Matrix " tale. There also is a two-set CD of the film's music.
Also Wednesday, Warner Bros. and French videogame maker Ubi Soft Entertainment are expected to announce a plan to jointly develop an online "Matrix " videogame, which will debut next year. Executives at the companies said AOL Time Warner plans to use various channels in its empire to market the game, including America Online. (Executives didn't disclose details on the plan.)
These four "Matrix " products could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, easily eclipsing the $170 million in U.S. ticket sales of the first "Matrix " movie.
This multimarket strategy is likely to become more common as the big franchise movies, typically costing $125 million to $200 million to make, seek to recoup their huge expenses. If the DVD market's explosive growth of recent years begins to slow, other studios will have to adopt a similar multiplatform strategy to keep profit up.
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow could spend as much as $150 million to market the two sequels world-wide, although the partners have pulled back on TV advertising in recent weeks since awareness of "Matrix Reloaded" is running so high.
As costly as the two "Matrix " are -- most production costs are due to digital special effects -- the payoff for the studios could be huge. For starters, the Wachowski brothers and producer Joel Silver are getting a lower percentage of revenue -- far less than the 30% to 40% deals that ate into profit for "Men in Black II" and other movies. In addition, more than 30 million DVD and VHS units of the first "Matrix " movie were sold, an indication of how strong sales could be for "Matrix Reloaded" when it is released in those formats shortly before the third film opens in six months. Domestic and foreign sales of TV rights are expected to easily yield an additional $100 million.
Regards.
