Wow!!!

i just found this while surfing the net:

"The Devil and Daniel Webster ---
Written by: Pete Dexter and Bill Condon and Nancy Cassaro
Cast: Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Love Hewitt
Genre: Thriller
Distribution: Splendid Pictures (Foreign) / TBA (Domestic)
Status: Post-Production
Set in New York City's literary world, a struggling writer makes a deal with the Devil to become a hot New York Times best-selling author in exchange for his soul in ten years. Those ten years go by like hours and soon, the author must implore the help of Daniel Webster, ace lawyer and the head of the most powerful publishing firm in the City, to get him out of the deal. This results in a rousing, climactic battle of wits and words as the Devil and Daniel Webster go to trial over the author's soul."
http://www.ce-ent.com/postproduction.html
the trailer is here:
http://www.ce-ent.com/cee/devil56k.html

i own DanielWebster.com and have it set-up as a reference site for that famous senator from massachusettes. but i wonder if the studio might be interested in buying the name to promote their new movie.

any suggestions?

thanks!

[Zoobar]

Maybe someone could provide some insight to what a reasonable price would be best to approach with.

[alldig]

how about hold onto the name and hope for some type ins when the movie comes out

Interesting little situation...

This movie is currently is post-production and experiencing some troubles...mostly, it seems, with first-time director Alec Baldwin's concerns about time and control. Here's an article about this...

http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/article/455619

This is a $27M movie...has major stars (Baldwin, Hopkins, Ackroyd)...the trailer got a good response at Cannes...yet there's no official site for the film yet (contrast this to "The Hulk" which hasn't even wrapped shooting and there's already a trailer and a site).

I'd say "DanielWebster.com" is the most appealing choice of URL for this movie, particularly since this is a major actor's vanity project (see safesys' many posts on the high value of vanity names).

Since you already have a site for this domain, I'd suggest you put a very prominent link at the top of your homepage for an internal page dedicated to this movie. Copy the production info from one of the other sites ( http://us.imdb.com/Title?0263265 ), and have a link to the trailer ( http://www.ce-ent.com/comingsoon.html ). Then maybe do a little se work...

In any case, once you've set up the special movie page, I'd do a gentle pitch to this film's production company. Once they finish post-production on this film, they're going to start marketing it, and that's going to be a least a couple of million. I'd say your domain name, being the best one (devilanddanielwebster.com is just a little too long), is worth a few thousand to these guys, easy.

The one major drawback is that this film's production company (Cutting Edge Entertainment) already regged "devilanddanielwebster.com" (in 2000), and might be content to use this as their promotional URL.

Good Selling!
Miles

[DotComster]

Major movie - nice site, add a few more pages of material if you can? And a link page to related (historical sites) - this i'll give it charecter.

I haven't seen or heard of this movie, but movie domains are very hot for only a short time. I'd say Minimum of $1,000

As a link to the more important historical person, I'd say $300 - but a lot more personal satisfaction?

[heatfan]

Goethe: Faust anyone ?

[Drewbert]

>Since you already have a site for this domain, I'd suggest you put a very
>prominent link at the top of your homepage for an internal page dedicated to
>this movie.

Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Bad faith registration!!!!!!

Here's what you do...

1. Make NO MENTION of the movie ANYWHERE

2. If anyone contacts you, pretend you know NOTHING about a movie by that name.

3. Ensure there are NO LINKS to commercial websites from the domain. Get rid of those links at the bottom of your curent site, AND THE POP-UP - and hope archive.org hasn't archived that version yet. Leave the info about the Senator there - that's GOOD, non-infringing data.

4. Sit back and WAIT. DO NOT CONTACT THEM.

5. If/when they do contact you, DO NOT REPLY. Pass the email onto an experienced domain attorney (such as Howard Neu) and have HIM handle it.

[fizz]

Originally posted by Drewbert
...and hope archive.org hasn't archived that version yet.

Excellent advice Drewbert. Just a little addition re archive.org: they will respect any siteowner's request to remove any archived data from the archive.org site, as well as block further attempts to archive from your site if you wish.

[IPatlas]

Cutting Edge Entertainment will probably stick to their guns and use the already regged "devilanddanielwebster.com" Of vourse they left out the "The" from the movie title but they may not be willing to part with "Devil". The noun encapsulates a major part of the movie (story) and was put in the title for a reason to begin with.

[Edwin]

Has the fact that this has been debated on this PUBLIC board escaped anyone?

thanks for all the good advice!


drewbert, i agree about not adding movie links.

that was NOT the reason why i purchased danielwebster.com. i'm a major history/biography nut, with a bachelor's degree in gov't and politics (see, that proves i'm a nut!). so i jumped at the chance to own the name of a great american historical figure.

thousands of american school kids will still be searching for daniel webster long after that movie has faded into celluloid oblivion (no offense, alec baldwin).

so even if i don't sell it, i'll just add it to my ever-growing list of hobby sites.

and genki,
lol!

[domaindirk]

Suggest you develope it with several pay links to merchandisers targeting the youth sector. (i.e. games, toys, books...). This is a story that has a youth to teenage readership. Think you might make a few grand a year from these links.

[hiOsilver]

First of all, if you are only trying to get a $1000 or $2000, no one is coming after you with a lawyer. It is cheaper for them to buy the name than hire a lawyer. Been there and done it (sold names to others at reasonable price when they started off very threateningly). Secondly, they cannot have a TM on DanielWebster, a public figure from long ago. You can try to market the name any way you like with little to fear from anyone. I think the studio might be happy to pay you even if they keep devilanddanielwebster.com as their primary site. They will get more traffic to the site if they also own danielwebster.com and forward it to the actual site.

I suggest everyone here read the book "Trademark: How to Name Your Business or Product" from Nolo Press.

Good Luck