Client: New Line Cinema
Creative: Russ Tucker, Tom Vukelja, Lee Borowiak

TEQUILA has erased the internet.

As part of the official movie website launch for Be Kind Rewind, New Line Cinema’s latest feature film from director Michel Gondry, starring Jack Black and Mos Def, the TEQUILA creative team rebuilt – ‘sweded’ – the internet using things they found around the office. String. Wire. Pipe cleaners. Some old bits from a Monopoly set. They are hoping no-one will mind.

The idea came from the film, in which Black’s character, Jerry, unwittingly erases all the tapes in the video store owned by his best friend Mike, played by Mos Def. Faced with financial ruin, the pair decide to ‘replace’ the famous titles which have been wiped. Armed with a handycam, everyday props and an immense amount of enthusiasm, they make their own versions of familiar classics like RoboCop, Ghost Busters and Driving Miss Daisy. They call this process ‘sweding’.

Tequila’s interactive website, using voice recordings from star Jack Black, encourages visitors to engage in the sweding process by creating their own sweded web pages and sweding themselves into movie posters for Nightmare on Elm Street, Rush Hour and Austin Powers, among others.

A definition of ‘sweded’ was entered into the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, ensuring the word’s place in popular vernacular.

Though the site launch was not advertised, its debut was an immediate success, drawing around 70,000 visitors, 750,000 trailer views, YouTube responses and mentions on numerous blogs within the first two weeks.

Be Kind Rewind launches in the USA on 25 January 2008.
The site can be viewed at www.bekindmovie.com