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In the year The Blair Witch Project<\/em> debuted, the movie\u2019s filmmakers were desperately looking for their stars. They passed out \u201cmissing person\u201d flyers<\/a> of the three main actors at the Sundance Film Festival, pleading for those with information to call a local sheriff. The film\u2019s website featured reels of policemen giving interviews about their investigation, while the IMDb page listed the actors as \u201cmissing, presumed dead.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Only, the actors were not dead, or missing. Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard\u2014who, per their contract, used their real names in the film\u2014were alive, but forced to lay low<\/a> for months to convince fans that the film\u2019s horrors were real. It was one of the first instances of viral marketing for a movie, and it was wildly successful.<\/p>\n As the film skyrocketed into fame, Artisan Entertainment\u2014which acquired the film at Sundance for $1.1 million\u2014barred Donohue\u2019s publicist from booking her interviews. Leonard was chastised for accepting another independent movie role. Williams took on a job as a furniture mover, unable to secure any other acting gigs while playing dead.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The marketing scheme was so convincing that when Artisan Entertainment surveyed moviegoers<\/a>, 50% of viewers believed The Blair Witch Project<\/em> was real. The scheme helped the film become a sensation, earning over $248 million at the worldwide box office on a shoestring $35,000 budget, earning them a Guinness<\/a> World Record for biggest box-office returns.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the film broke the $100 million mark, Donahue, Williams, and Leonard believed that, coming out of hiding, they would finally get their dues as the actors who filmed, improvised, and brought the story to life. Instead, they got a fruit basket, they recently told Variety<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Back then, the three actors were in their early 20s\u2014Hollywood outsiders who took jobs on the indie film for its $500-a-week paycheck. Now, they are middle-aged, with jobs like high-school guidance counselor and marijuana farmer\u2014and ready to sue, or tell-all to Variety<\/em>, to gain a fraction of the profits they say business executives cheated them out of.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t take care of your loved ones.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n When the young actors first signed their contracts, they didn\u2019t think much of a clause that required them to use their real names for the film. After all, the film was just another indie movie with a ridiculous premise that let them accrue on-set experience, and also offered them the miniscule pay of $500 a week (they filmed for eight days).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI did a lot of work for no pay,\u201d Williams told Variety<\/em>. \u201cThis said \u2018Paid,\u2019 so you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, maybe I can be a professional.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Another clause offered them an opportunity for profit that at the time seemed \u201cridiculous,\u201d according to Donohue. If the project net over $1 million, the actors were entitled to \u201ca one percent (1%) participation in profits in excess of $1,000,000.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, the movie ended up making much more than $1 million in profits. But the 1% was a measly sum, and, since the actors\u2019 real names were tied to their characters, they struggled to find casting directors who took them seriously. The cast members found themselves poor, but famous: serving catering to their own agents, or breaking down in old cars under huge billboards with their faces on it.<\/p>\n The result, for the cast members, was as humiliating as it was ironic. Williams broke down in tears during the Variety <\/em>interview, explaining how hard it was to explain his situation to others.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m embarrassed that I let this happen to me,\u201d Williams said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to put that stuff away, because you\u2019re a f\u2014-g loser if you can\u2019t. Because everybody\u2019s wondering what happened, and your wife is in the grocery line and she can\u2019t pay because a check bounced. You\u2019re in the most successful independent movie of all time, and you can\u2019t take care of your loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n At the end of the summer of The Blair Witch Project\u2019s<\/em> release, the actors received a \u201cperformance bump\u201d in the low five figures. Meanwhile, Lionsgate, which purchased Artisan and then Blumhouse, continued profiting from their names and likenesses for marketing, and created new, profitable sequels.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the mid-2000s, Donohue rallied her two co-stars to sue Artisan, which generated a $300,000 settlement that would be paid to each of them over several years. Meanwhile, Haxan, the production company that created The Blair Witch Project<\/em>, earned an estimated \u201c$35 million to $40 million\u201d from the film, according<\/a> to The New York Times<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last month, the three actors wrote a public letter calling for Liongate to give them residual payments \u201cequivalent to the sum that would\u2019ve been allotted through SAG-AFTRA, had we had proper union or legal representation when the film was made.\u201d They also requested \u201cmeaningful consultation\u201d on any further Blair Witch<\/em> spinoffs that would utilize their names or likenesses. They also requested an annual $60,000 grant (the amount of the original Blair Witch<\/em> budget) paid out yearly by Lionsgate to unknown filmmakers.<\/p>\n The three\u2019s message to young actors: \u201cDon\u2019t do what we did.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very grateful for what I have now and how fucking hard I fought to get it,\u201d Williams told Variety.<\/em>\u201dBut it still impacts me. I buried all this. Giant corporations don\u2019t care that this happens to young artists. It\u2019s bullshit. And that\u2019s got to change somehow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n