Stacks of old newspapers. Taped-up sketches of locations. Handwritten character bios pinned to the wall. And at the center of it all, a spiral notebook thick with scribbled plans—his blueprint for launching The Blair Witch Project into legend.
The screenplay was nearly finished, but the real masterpiece was something else entirely:
The Publicity Plan.
Ben knew the script wouldn't sell the movie. The mystery would.
And so, he went deeper—thinking not like a director, but like an illusionist.
"If you want them to believe the lie, you have to make it feel like the truth has been hiding in plain sight all along."
He started with real missing persons cases—those that had gone cold in the Maryland area or surrounding states. He poured through public police reports at the library and pulled names, dates, and circumstances that felt hauntingly close to the fictional events of Blair Witch.
Using those as anchors, he created a fictional trail.
Flyers. Designed to look like they'd been printed by worried parents and taped to gas stations and telephone poles. Faded photographs. Tear-away numbers. Real names mixed with invented ones. All tied to the same woods in Maryland.
Old newspaper clippings. He designed mock-ups based on real regional papers, complete with yellowed edges and typefaces from the '70s and '80s. Stories of hikers gone missing. Locals reporting strange sounds in the forest. Police unable to find any remains. All referencing a mythical "Blair Witch" buried in the back pages like a forgotten rumor.
Anonymous radio calls. He'd use a payphone, a distorted voice, and call into late-night AM talk shows—the kind obsessed with conspiracies and ghost stories. He'd hint at strange happenings in the woods. Disappearances. Hidden tapes. He'd give just enough information for someone to go digging.
He even had a plan for college towns—flyers posted on bulletin boards and in dormitories. Tapes left in student unions. Zines and small print horror publications that would be "tipped off" by someone anonymous.
"Let the myth spread on its own. Don't sell the movie—sell the mystery."
He sketched out every stage in the plan with obsessive detail. From how the actors would go uncredited to how local Maryland news could be fed anonymous "tips." From how they'd edit the film to feel like raw found footage, to how the actors themselves would go dark on social media—if it existed.
"No online presence, no press. Let them think they're really gone."
The deeper Ben got, the more he believed it. This wasn't just a plan—it was performance art masquerading as marketing. And if everything went to plan?
"They'll talk about this film for years," he whispered, looking at the fake flyer he'd just aged with coffee and sun exposure. "They'll debate whether it was ever even a movie at all."
He set the flyer down and stared at the final page of his plan.
A single sentence, underlined three times: "SELL THE MYTH. NEVER BREAK CHARACTER."
In the next few days that followed, before the meeting with Amanda and Helen, Ben first took a necessary precaution—he submitted the script to the Editors' Association for filing.
It wasn't a legal requirement, but in this town, having your script on file served as a kind of creative insurance policy. A way to protect your idea from being "borrowed" by someone with more clout and fewer scruples.
With that handled, he hunkered down at his table and began fleshing out the details.
Character profiles. Scene outlines. Shot breakdowns. And most importantly—the publicity plan.
In his previous life, the release of The Blair Witch Project had ridden the crest of the internet wave.
It was one of the earliest examples of viral marketing done right—an official-looking website, fake news articles, missing person flyers, and a whispered narrative that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. The internet had been its playground.
But this was 1993. The internet was barely a whisper. No Twitter. No YouTube. No Reddit threads to stoke the fires of myth.
"We flip the strategy," Ben muttered, scribbling onto a fresh page. "If the net won't carry the myth, the media will."
Traditional outlets—TV stations, local newspapers, radio—would have to bear the load. Late-night talk shows. College campus flyers. Local reporters "discovering" the footage.
Rumors whispered through articles, planted by "concerned locals" or "family members" of the missing.
"There's no limit to the hype. Just blur the line between real and fake, and let the audience do the rest."
If the public began asking, Is this real? then he'd already won.
Would the audience feel duped later? Probably. Would filmgoers be furious when they realized it was fiction? Definitely.
But by then, the box office would've spoken. The myth would've done its job. And Ben?
Well, he didn't have to put his name on it.
"Worst case," he thought, "I stay anonymous. No interviews, no photos. Hell, let the producers take credit. I just want a cut."
Even if it exploded and turned controversial, he could shield himself. Register an offshore company as the issuing entity. Let them handle the backlash. Hollywood didn't care how the money was made—just that it flowed in.
"You think a distributor cares if it's real? They care about profits. The rest is noise."
He leaned back, tapping his pen against his lips. There was risk, sure. A lot of it. But for a nobody in 1993 with nothing to lose and everything to prove?
Risk was the game.
And if he played it right, The Blair Witch Project wouldn't just launch his name—it could rewrite how movies were sold in Hollywood.