Hey folks, Harry here... I don't usually delve into this quandrant of film - the world of stats and box office. It's a dry area usually. However, as a film fan that loves kickass movies, I was quite happy to see 300 doing very well this past weekend. I was also amused that the "old guard" film critics were thumbing their nose at its awesomeness - and declaring it as nothing but a video game cut-scene that will be forgotten instantaneously.

Old fogeys, the lot of em. I'm not a video game kid. I don't own a Wii or Xbox 360 nor a Playstation whatever it's up to. The movie isn't a video game, it is a comic book brought to life. The fights are Frank Miller's illustrations brought to life. And I fucking love it. And I have the ability to look at this, not as a movie that I saw this past weekend, but a movie I've seen since December. It has absolutely stuck with me since.

But that's not what I'm writing about. Instead, I'm here to talk about an Internet Success. Not necessarily AICN, but all of us here on the Internet. 300 wasn't being marketed as an "internet phenom" like SNAKES ON A PLANE... but, it is the success that SNAKES wasn't.

For every movie that is released in this world - every opening weekend there are pollsters working for the studios taking exit polls. Essentially asking why people are there to see the movie. Was it the TV Commercials, the Theatrical Trailer, the Billboards, The One Sheet, Television Talk Shows, Radio Talk Shows or Ads, the INTERNET and WEBSITES.

Now - the big dog - through out modern film marketing analysis... the thing everyone tends to blame is... TV COMMERCIALS. Time after time, that is why people go see movies. In recent years - a growing area of why people went to movies was websites. Especially in the "geek" arena of film, but surprisingly the Internets has shown up as a significant draw for films of all sorts. But TV COMMERCIALS have remained king.

Until Now.

In Warner's Top Secret polls - 60% chose the Internet as what brought them to the theater.

And at IMAX - that number grew to 68%.

These numbers show a HUGE growth in the Internet's growing pull for where people decide to see their weekend movies. Of course - the traditional commercials are MySpaced and YouTubed into Viral attacks. The exposure on AICN and CHUD and DARKHORIZONS and SUPERHEROHYPE, etc... have continued to grow. All your personal bloggings have really begun to affect why 300 has done so well.

Too often the media in general downplays the internet - using it as the blame for why movies like SNAKES ON A PLANE didn't perform up to expectations - but what this shows is how the internet can take a film of general interest and successfully turn it into an amazing hit.

So, my internet brothers and sisters - WAY TO GO!