Bonnie Hammer makes a fool out of herself (and Sci Fi Network) yet again...
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Bonnie Hammer makes a fool out of herself (and Sci Fi Network) yet again...
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Sci Fi Channel admitted that it lied last month in claiming it was at odds with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and was making an unauthorized biography about his "buried secret."
The hoax was part of a "guerilla marketing campaign" that went too far, network president Bonnie Hammer said Friday.
The network announced in December that the reclusive Shyamalan, maker of "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," had agreed to participate in a documentary about his life to run in connection with this summer's release of his new movie, "The Village."
Sci Fi said last month, however, that Shyamalan had soured on the documentary when the questions got too personal. Documentarians Nathaniel Kahn and Callum Greene pressed on and made a three-hour film, "The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan," without his cooperation, the network said.
The Associated Press wrote about the documentary last month, and other media also ran accounts. In an interview, Greene described how Shyamalan's "cooperation dried up." A network spokesman told the AP that Sci Fi was confident it had legal grounds to air the film and would probably never work with Shyamalan again.
In a news release, Sci Fi said Shyamalan had attempted to shut down production of the "disturbing expose."
It was all a lie, and there is no buried secret, Hammer said Friday.
The documentary, scheduled to air Sunday, says a mysterious drowning of a child in a lake near Shyamalan's boyhood home in the Philadelphia area had profoundly affected his life and fueled his interest in the supernatural. That's not true either, Hammer said.
"We created a fictional special that was part-fact and part-fiction, and Night was part of the creation from the beginning," the network chief said.
Moviegoers walk away from Shyamalan's films not knowing what was real or not, and "we wanted to do the same thing in a special about his life," she said.
Sci Fi did not send a complete copy of the film to television critics, but sent a half-hour tape of highlights this week that, in some spots, hinted it might be a mockumentary.
Actor Adrien Brody, a star of "The Village," is interviewed in the documentary saying that he was sworn to secrecy about everything in the movie. Asked if he had short or long hair in the film, he refused to answer.
"Perhaps we might have taken the guerrilla campaign one step too far," Hammer said. "We thought it would create controversy and it probably went one step too far."
Hammer said she had been in on the hoax from the beginning and took responsibility for duping the public. Sci Fi, which is available in some 83 million homes, has recently been taken over by corporate parent NBC Universal.
"This marketing strategy is not consistent with our policy at NBC," said Rebecca Marks, NBC entertainment spokeswoman. "We would never intend to offend the public or the press and value our relationship with both."
Greene, a producer of "Lost in Translation," shares an agent with Shyamalan.
The hoax was part of a "guerilla marketing campaign" that went too far, network president Bonnie Hammer said Friday.
The network announced in December that the reclusive Shyamalan, maker of "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," had agreed to participate in a documentary about his life to run in connection with this summer's release of his new movie, "The Village."
Sci Fi said last month, however, that Shyamalan had soured on the documentary when the questions got too personal. Documentarians Nathaniel Kahn and Callum Greene pressed on and made a three-hour film, "The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan," without his cooperation, the network said.
The Associated Press wrote about the documentary last month, and other media also ran accounts. In an interview, Greene described how Shyamalan's "cooperation dried up." A network spokesman told the AP that Sci Fi was confident it had legal grounds to air the film and would probably never work with Shyamalan again.
In a news release, Sci Fi said Shyamalan had attempted to shut down production of the "disturbing expose."
It was all a lie, and there is no buried secret, Hammer said Friday.
The documentary, scheduled to air Sunday, says a mysterious drowning of a child in a lake near Shyamalan's boyhood home in the Philadelphia area had profoundly affected his life and fueled his interest in the supernatural. That's not true either, Hammer said.
"We created a fictional special that was part-fact and part-fiction, and Night was part of the creation from the beginning," the network chief said.
Moviegoers walk away from Shyamalan's films not knowing what was real or not, and "we wanted to do the same thing in a special about his life," she said.
Sci Fi did not send a complete copy of the film to television critics, but sent a half-hour tape of highlights this week that, in some spots, hinted it might be a mockumentary.
Actor Adrien Brody, a star of "The Village," is interviewed in the documentary saying that he was sworn to secrecy about everything in the movie. Asked if he had short or long hair in the film, he refused to answer.
"Perhaps we might have taken the guerrilla campaign one step too far," Hammer said. "We thought it would create controversy and it probably went one step too far."
Hammer said she had been in on the hoax from the beginning and took responsibility for duping the public. Sci Fi, which is available in some 83 million homes, has recently been taken over by corporate parent NBC Universal.
"This marketing strategy is not consistent with our policy at NBC," said Rebecca Marks, NBC entertainment spokeswoman. "We would never intend to offend the public or the press and value our relationship with both."
Greene, a producer of "Lost in Translation," shares an agent with Shyamalan.
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So let me get this straight. Shyamalan did cooperate with this documentary fully? Seems to me that he's partly to blame for this idea as well, although he probably didn't have anything to do with the marketing. And...
I know that I, for one, am still trying to figure out if Bruce Willis is a dead person who has super-human strength or not. Am I misreading what she said?
Moviegoers walk away from Shyamalan's films not knowing what was real or not, and "we wanted to do the same thing in a special about his life," she said.
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Originally posted by Static Cling
So let me get this straight. Shyamalan did cooperate with this documentary fully? Seems to me that he's partly to blame for this idea as well, although he probably didn't have anything to do with the marketing.
So let me get this straight. Shyamalan did cooperate with this documentary fully? Seems to me that he's partly to blame for this idea as well, although he probably didn't have anything to do with the marketing.
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But read this:
She says he was part of the part-fact, part-fiction idea from the get-go.
"We created a fictional special that was part-fact and part-fiction, and Night was part of the creation from the beginning," the network chief said.
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This sounds just like the "documentary" that aired on the Sci-Fi network right after Blair Witch that gave some backstory of the mythology and was advertised as being fact(when in reality it was as fictional as the film itself).
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There's been a bunch of these fake documentaries, including one for Night's last film. Anybody who's seen one of these should have known this was a joke. I think the one for Signs was probably the worst one. I couldn't stand 10 minutes of it.
I wonder what she meant by saying it went too far. Did the majority of people actually believe this was true?
I wonder what she meant by saying it went too far. Did the majority of people actually believe this was true?
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I don't think this is any crime but I do think it's an awfully tedius and boring exercise. But it's sure easier than creative programming, ain't it? A commerical pretending to be fact about fiction that that's really fiction about fiction - and none of it's the slightest bit entertaining or will do anything to endear this movie in the minds of people.
This is a cynical age, but do they have to make it so easy?
This is a cynical age, but do they have to make it so easy?
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Originally posted by PalmerJoss
This sounds just like the "documentary" that aired on the Sci-Fi network right after Blair Witch that gave some backstory of the mythology and was advertised as being fact(when in reality it was as fictional as the film itself).
This sounds just like the "documentary" that aired on the Sci-Fi network right after Blair Witch that gave some backstory of the mythology and was advertised as being fact(when in reality it was as fictional as the film itself).
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I'm not planning on watching M Night Shyamalan's Blair Witch anyway. First time I saw the commercial all I could think of was blair witch, which sucked, and this looks sucky too