They had just $35K to shoot a horror film.
No stars. No studio. No ads.
Hollywood mocked them
Then it made $250M and changed movie marketing forever.
Here’s the greatest guerrilla stunt in film history: 🧵
The year was 1999.
No YouTube. No TikTok. No viral playbooks.
Three indie filmmakers had a wild idea:
→ Film a fake documentary.
→ Make it look real.
→ Trick the internet into believing it.
They cast total unknowns.
Used handheld cameras.
Gave no script — just outlines.
The actors improvised everything.
The result?
A disturbing, ultra-realistic “found footage” nightmare.
But the genius wasn’t the film.
It was the marketing.
They didn’t make a trailer.
They made a missing persons report.
They built a website.
Not to promote the film—
But to say three students disappeared in the woods.
It had:
- Photos of the missing
- Fake news clippings
- Police reports
- Lore of the Blair Witch
It felt real.
Then they hit internet forums.
No promotion. No trailers. No hype.
Just whispers:
“Have you seen this?” “Is it real?”
The internet took the bait.
Right before release—
They aired a fake documentary on TV:
“Curse of the Blair Witch.”
Viewers were hooked.
Just in time for the premiere.
Things got wild:
- IMDb pages were wiped
- The actors hid for months
- Even critics weren’t sure if it was real
Everyone was asking:
“Is this a documentary or a horror movie?”
No celebrities.
No press junkets.
No million-dollar campaigns.
Just a brilliant myth—
And a curious internet that spread it like wildfire.
- Budget: $35,000
- Revenue: $250,000,000
A 714,000% return.
Still one of the most profitable movies ever made.
It wasn’t luck.
It was marketing as myth-making.
They didn’t just sell a film—
They sold suspicion.
Then let the internet run with it.
The Blair Witch Project didn’t go viral.
It invented virality.
💡 Lesson:
You don’t need millions.
You need a story people can’t ignore.
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