Blair Witch Webcast draws 100,000 in first hours

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- Artisan Entertainment said a Webcast to promote the sequel to last year's blockbuster "The Blair Witch Project" attracted 100,000 users in its first six hours of operation Wednesday.

"As of 2:45 p.m. PDT, there were 100,000 unique users from eight countries and we expect that number to rise significantly in the next few hours," an Artisan spokesman said.

No other low-budget film, lacking big name stars or slick special effects, has had the success of the original "Blair Witch," which was made for $30,000 and went on to gross $245 million worldwide.

Moviegoers were lured by an unprecedented buzz started on the Internet that blurred the lines of fact and fiction so that many people believed the film was lost footage of a real documentary made by students who went into supposedly haunted woods and were never heard from again.

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For the sequel, Artisan is planning a marketing blitz, and partnered with Yahoo! Amazon.com Jumpcut and many others for a 64-hour Webfest that began Wednesday at 9 a.m. PDT.

The sequel "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," opens October 27, the Friday of Halloween weekend.

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