Why 20th Century Fox Blanked Out Two Pages of The New York Times
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In the main section of today’s print edition of The New York Times, readers will notice a whole lot of nothing on pages 9 and 10. The two virtually blank, back-to-back pages are actually an ad for 20th Century Fox’s upcoming film adaptation of Markus Zusak’s best-selling novel, “The Book Thief,” which opens in New York and L.A. on November 8. At the bottom of the second page appears only a single url that reads wordsarelife.com, which leads to a basic info site for the film.
Directed by Brian Percival, the film stars Sophie Nelisse as Liesel Memminger, a young girl living in WWII Germany who finds solace in stealing books and sharing them with others. The point of the ads, says 20th Century Fox Exec VP-Media Julie Rieger, is to recreate the experience of the main character for those who see it.
“In our marketing world today, we have this give, give, give attitude,” said Ms. Rieger. “Click here, call this number, get more content. We’re sending people all over the place. But with this, we actually wanted to take something away, to make people feel what it would be like to live in a world without words, if only for a moment. That’s how our character Liesel exists when we first meet her in the movie.”
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