Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2004
Abstract
The primary focus of this chapter is on what could be broadly described as The Blair Witch Project's political economy. This includes a consideration of the film's relationship to patterns of ownership and the economic structures of film production, distribution, and marketing within the structure of the entertainment industry and in the context of its critical and popular reception. The second half of the essay historicizes BWP in relation to film production and exhibition in the 1890s, and concludes with an examination of its mythic status as an independent film that threatened to undermine Hollywood's blockbuster paradigm. By placing BWP in these broader historical, cultural, and institutional contexts there comes a greater understanding of this individual film and contemporary film in general.
Recommended Citation
Castonguay, J. (2004). The political economy of the Indie blockbuster: Fandom, intermediality, and The Blair Witch project. In S. L. Higley & J. A. Weinstock (Eds.). Nothing that is: Millennial cinema and the Blair Witch controversies. Wayne State University Press.
Comments
ISBN 9780814330647 (pbk.)