Movie Websites Launches for May 14 - May 20

May 20, 2004

During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates. It was another deceptively slow week as there are lots of site on the list, but none stood out as an award winning site. Many were simple placeholders, others had just minor updates, and the only three flash sites to launch were mostly marked coming soon. I was even tempted to not give out an award or maybe even bring in a ringer. But in the end I went with The Incredibles - Official Site. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.


Anchorman
Current Content: The second section, Balls of Brass, was supposed to be added last week. Now instead of saying, Coming May 13th, it says, Coming Soon. Some of the other sections still have specific release dates, but I doubt they'll follow those either.


Around the World in 80 Days
Current Content: Another location in the round the world journey was added to the site. The latest was the Pacific Ocean. Here you can read about early flight and see short animations of three less than successful attempts at flying machines.


Chicken Little
Current Content: Just the teaser trailer.


A Cinderella Story
Current Content: The first of three new flash site of the week. The flash site has about half the content marked coming soon including movie information, a music video and the interactive features. What's left is what was previously on the placeholder site. The flash site does have enough animations and sound as well as some background music, sort of. The clip is 30 seconds long, which is a very good length for looping background music, however it only plays once. I assume this is a mistake, one that will hopefully be fixed shortly.


Constantine
Current Content: Just the trailer so far.


Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Current Content: The image gallery with a dozen stills was added to the site.


Garfield
Current Content: Much of the text was added to the site when the cast and crew bios as well as the production notes were updated.


The Green Hornet
Current Content: Another piece of news was added to the site, and it's not good news. The Project has been delayed as Kevin Smith decided to rewrite the script.


Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Current There was a slight change to some of the graphics and to the game.


Hero
Current Content: There are a lot of video clips on this site, more than an hour in fact. Unfortunately for me, they're not in English. The site also has the usual features and a game and chatroom marked coming soon.


The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Current Content: There is what promises to be a rather extensive production diary. So far there are a few articles, a couple of images and a short video of an early test of the Marvin the Paranoid Android suit.


The Incredibles
Current Content: The film's still almost half a year away, but the flash site launched this week. Granted, most of the features are still marked coming soon. The synopsis is there, so are the first two trailers, a couple of images, and a few downloads. The highlight of the site so far are the character bios, but even these have more content marked coming soon than is currently available. Normally when a site starts this small it isn't 's in the running until much more content is added. However, this isn't a normal week and the site is the best of what's here so it wins the wondrous Weekly Website Award. Hopefully as more content is added it can live up to it.


King Arthur
Current Content: The flash site went live this week and like the other two new flash sites on this list a lot of the content is marked coming soon. The synopsis is there, so are the cast and crew, (bios are marked coming soon) and a lot of multimedia, an image gallery and some downloads. Rounding out the website are the character bios.


Lords of Dogtown
Current Content: Placeholder site with the synopsis and one webisode. The first webisode shows Jim Muir making a skateboard.


Love Me If You Dare
Current Content: No changes since the site first launched.


The Manchurian Candidate
Current Content: Just the trailer so far.


Maria Full of Grace
Current Content: Just the placeholder site with no real content.


Ocean's Twelve
Current Content: Just the teaser trailer and the poster.


The Rage in Placid Lake
Current Content: This is the site for the Australian release, so there's no information about the American release. There's lot of information on this site, including more than half a dozen clips from the movie.


Raising Helen
Current Content: A new game was added to the site. You can either play as the kids and throw stuff at the models, or you can play as the models and try and dodge the stuff the kids throw at you.


Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Current Content: One of the games was added to the site. You get to mix and match DNA in an attempt to come up with a really powerful mutant. Unfortunately, the other game that was marked coming soon is no longer there and has been replaced with promotions. This could be for contests, or it could be for ads. The latter is more likely.


Seed of Chucky
Current Content: Just the teaser trailer so far.


Shark Tale
Current Content: The trailer was added to the site, as were a couple of downloads. There are also a lot more downloads marked coming soon, hopefully that means there will be regular updates, say once a week, and not no updates for 4 months then every added a week before the movie is released.


Shrek 2
Current Content: There have been no changes to this award-winning site since it won the award.


Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Current Content: You can now change the theme of the site, sort of. The option is there to change but only one theme is available with the other four marked coming soon.


Spanglish
Current Content: No real content, just the name and a very brief synopsis.


Spider-Man 2
Current Content: A few more images were added to the site, as well as some addition downloads. You can also submit a question for to one of the stars.


The Spongebob Squarepants Movie
Current Content: The new trailer was almost added. The link is there, but it just takes you back to the main site. Head over to Apple.com to see the trailer.


Stander
Current Content: Just a placeholder site in the format of a newspaper with a short article.


Stateside
Current Content: A true love quiz / e-card was added to the site just in time for tomorrow's release.


The Stepford Wives
Current Content: One of the extras, the Stepford Makeover, was activated during the past week.


Twist
Current Content: Just the press kit, image gallery, trailer and a few clips. The press kit does have a lot of information, more than many sites.


Wicker Park
Current Content: None.


Yuva
Current Content: This is another site that doesn't fully work with my web browser. All the Multimedia features don't work, and that's a huge chunk of the website. The rest of the site has most of the usual features and has enough sound and animation.


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Filed under: Shrek 2, Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith, The Incredibles, Shark Tale, Chicken Little, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Constantine, Garfield: The Movie, The Manchurian Candidate, The Stepford Wives, Jet Li's Hero, King Arthur, A Cinderella Story, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Spanglish, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Raising Helen, Around the World in 80 Days, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Seed of Chucky, Wicker Park, Lords of Dogtown, Maria Full of Grace, Love Me If You Dare, Yuva, Stateside, Twist, Stander, The Rage in Placid Lake