Melbourne has been voted one of twenty cities to host an advanced screening of Paranormal Activity 3.
The campaign utilised social networking website Twitter as a way for users to “Tweet To See It First”, voting for the city they wanted the premiere of the horror franchise to be held in.
Melbourne was voted fifth out of the top 20 cities (behind Houston, TX; Vancouver, BC Canada; Phoenix, AZ; San Antonio, TX) and will now host a screening on October 18, days before the official release on Octover 20. Other top voted cities include Houston, Toronto, London and Tel Aviv.
“The response to the ‘Tweet to See it First' campaign proved to us the immense global strength of the franchise, with fans from as far as Panama and Tel Aviv to San Antonio and Vancouver competing to see this film first.” said Rob Moore, Vice Chairman of Paramount Pictures in a statement released today.
“The third instalment is as scary and entertaining as the first and we're confident that these advance screenings will spark strong social conversation around the world in advance of the film’s opening.”
The Paranormal Activity franchise has a history of using social media to promote the films.
The first film opened in 13 select college towns and, after great word-of-mouth, Paramount Pictures hired eventful.com to set up a “Demand it!” service for the next round of premieres.
Paranormal Activity 2 also had a similar voting campaign for the premiere although it was limited to US cities. This is the first time the franchise has attempted to reach a global audience by giving non-US citizens a chance to host the premiere.