Sony, reportedly at the urging of director Marc Webb, is in the process of creating an online viral marketing campaign for Webb’s franchise reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man, which debuts in theaters nationwide on July 3rd.  Sony has created a “meta-Spidey” Website called WebbedMenace.com, which purports to be a news channel owned and operated by the Spidey-baiting news mogul  J. Jonah Jamison.  The first “news report” on the site discusses the various reactions to Spidey’s vigilante campaign and features both shots of graphitti artists celebrating Spider-Man’s exploits and an interview with NYPD Captain George Stacy (Dennis Leary), who clearly doesn’t take kindly to Spidey’s crime-fighting activities.

 

This sort of viral marketing is hardly new, and similar campaigns have been conducted in the past for big budget superhero movies, such as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight in 2008 (see “Dark Knight Viral Marketing in an Election Year”).  The question is, will Webb and the Sony marketing team be able to come up with the kind of highly effective viral campaign like Josh Trank, who managed to gain a lot of attention for his low-budget teen superhero movie Chronicle by posting a “Flying People in New York City” video on YouTube that received over 6.5 million hits (see “Chronicle, Lady in Black Top Weekend”).