Put a sock, or some fries, in it... Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me
Something very curious was happening during the Berlin film festival last week. The world's distributors were all flocking to watch footage of Untitled, the new project from Morgan Spurlock (the man who put himself through hamburger hell in Super Size Me.)
Before being allowed into the screening room, these distributors had to sign rigorous confidentiality agreements. Trade paper Variety reported one distributor as saying: "Basically, it (the confidentiality agreement) said they are going to kill me, my company and my family if I say anything at all about this."
Next to nothing has been divulged to the public about the film other than that it is something to do with Osama bin Laden and that it is in Spurlock's usual irreverent vein.
Luckily, the buyers liked what they saw and Spurlock's documentary became the biggest seller in Berlin, closing deals with scores of Asian and European distributors and being pre-bought for the US by the Weinstein Company.
To the outside world, the secrecy surrounding Untitled seems like a marketing trick; "the less you know, the more intrigued you'll be" appears to be the strategy. The film is being sold internationally by Paris-based Wild Bunch, the company that also helped turn Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 into a global phenomenon.
In this case, a Wild Bunch spokesperson insists that the confidentiality agreements have nothing to do with marketing. "The shooting is dangerous and we don't want the people near where [Spurlock] is shooting to know what he is doing. It is more to protect him than any other reason," the spokesperson says.
Whether Wild Bunch really does have Spurlock's best interests at heart, it has certainly found a new way of piquing buyers' and audiences' curiosity. We may know next to nothing about it, but this is one film we will all want to see.
