Fans Get to Talk About ?Transformers,? and the Knives Are Unsheathed
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: July 9, 2007
LOS ANGELES, June 8 ? Hollywood is a town of talkers, not listeners. That?s why studios handsomely pay consultants to parse the results of focus groups and audience exit polls or eavesdrop on online chat rooms.
Only rarely do the filmmakers themselves talk directly to fans but Don Murphy, one of the producers of the summer blockbuster ?Transformers,? decided to do just that.
Four years ago, Mr. Murphy, a comic-book lover since growing up on Long Island in the 1970s, turned a forum on his personal Web site (donmurphy.net) into a rolling conversation about the movie, which was released on July 2. And much to the delight of some of the fans who posted on the site and engaged with Mr. Murphy, they actually had some influence over changes in the script and casting.
The site would seem to be a perfect example of a modern media company reaching out to potential audience members in a new, interactive conversation. But in an unorthodox twist ? one that might give media companies some pause ? Mr. Murphy?s site quickly became a home not only for fans to debate whether Megatron?s form should be a tank or a gun (he ended up as an alien jet) but a place to vent frustration with the movie?s production as well as with the executives who worked on the film.