If anybody could pull it off, it would be Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. The comedy duo and stars of the often demented Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! have a rabid and loyal enough fan base that releasing their new movie in an experimental new way just might work.
Tomorrow night, Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie will debut on Facebook, a full two weeks before it arrives in theaters. For $10, fans will be able watch the movie and chat with its stars in real time. The model represents a new sort of social cinema that, while not widespread, appears poised to become a potentially major trend.
Magnolia Pictures, who is releasing the film, is no stranger to the concept of making movies available before they hit theaters. The distributor is accustomed to releasing films via Video on Demand prior to their theatrical release, but this is the first time they've experimented with putting something out on Facebook first. Tim and Eric, they figure, would make an ideal test case.
"Everything that we've done with them has just been huge," said Andrew McGraime, Magnolia's Vice President of Interactive Marketing. We did a Reddit chat, which was the biggest Reddit has had. All of their viral videos have been huge hits."
To make it happen, Magnolia partnered with a company called Milyoni, which specializes in live entertainment events on Facebook. Using its Social Live product, the company sets up streaming content that lives directly within Facebook, as well as deep social integration to encourage fan interaction. By setting everything up on Facebook and streaming the movie at a set time, the opportunity becomes ripe for genuine, real-time social buzz, which can spread across social connections as people see their friends participating and sharing content related to the movie. Full article...
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