Category: Movies

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Movies News

Sony Pictures registers domain names for yet-untitled “Killing bin Laden” movie

Killing bin Laden Movie

Earlier this month as reported by Deadline.com, The New York Times, Associated Press, and other news sites, Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired the rights to Kathryn Bigelow’s film about killing Osama bin Laden.

The film project was originally called “killing bin Laden” according to Deadline who first broke the story. 

After bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs, the project changed, and so did the title of the movie. 

Well, despite rumors that the film is untitled, Sony Pictures isn’t taking any chances. 

On May 26, only days after news broke of Sony’s deal with Bigelow, the company has registered nearly a dozen domain names related to the killing of bin Laden movie.  

Registrant:
        Domain Administrator
        SPDE Domain Names Inc
        9050 West Washington Blvd Smith Building 2014 A
         Culver City CA 90232
        ‘[email protected]’

    Domain Name: killingbinladen-movie.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com‘

Created on…………..: 2011-05-26.
    Expires on…………..: 2012-05-26.
    Record last updated on..: 2011-05-26.

Other names registered by Sony Pictures include the following:

killingbinladen-movie.com 
killingbinladen-movie.net 
killingbinladen.net 
killingbinladenmovie.com 
thekilling-movie.com 
thekilling-movie.net 
thekillingofbinladen-movie.com 
thekillingofbinladen-movie.net 
thekillingofbinladen.net 
thekillingofbinladenmovie.com 

The company missed out on some of the better web addresses. 

The domain killingofbinladen.com was registered May 2, 2011, while killingbinladen.com was registered May 3, 2011 after it had expired and became available again.

Kathryn Bigelow had better luck on The Hurt Locker, which won six Academy Awards including Best Picture.  The official site is located at the URL thehurtlocker.com. 

At the time of this posting, no other news site or blog has reported about Sony Pictures’ domain registrations. 

[Photo of the Situation Room in the White House via Wikimedia]

Categories
Movies News Trademarks

A flurry of Navy SEAL domain names registered after the killing of bin Laden

US Navy SEAL

As one might expect, with the Navy SEALs being in the news after killing Osama bin Laden, the number of Navy SEAL domain names being registered has soared.

The latest stories of Disney abandoning its trademark application on SEAL Team 6 and news of Columbia Pictures set to debut the first film in 2012 about the raid, has sparked even more registrations — which can average anywhere from 30 to 50 a day depending on the news.

Here’s a look at recent SEAL registrations, courtesy of DomainTools. 

The domains range from merchandise domains like SEALTeam6shirts.com to fan names like ThanksNavySeals.com and  SEALTeam6forPresident.com.  NavySEAL.info was registered only yesterday.

Because there have literally been hundreds and hundreds of SEAL domains created, I’ve only listed a limited number that I’ve seen registered in recent days. 

By the way, if you haven’t seen this Funny or Die video on the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, it’s a must see. WARNING: The video contains profanity.

The Navy Seal Who Killed Osama Bin Laden from Rob Riggle
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Movies News

Sean Parker’s biggest contribution to domain names: Drop the “The”

Sean Parker

TechCrunch has posted an article about the parody video on YouTube titled Drop The The (The Social Network Song) that was produced by Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez of Single Serving Films. 

Dressed up like Justin Timberlake and surrounded by bling, the fake Sean Parker raps about dropping the word “The” from Facebook and other companies like “The Gap”.

If you haven’t watched the movie “The Social Network”, in one scene, Sean Parker who co-founded Napster and was played by Justin Timberlake in the film, advises Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin during their first dinner meeting to drop the word “the” in the company’s name and web address: TheFacebook.com.   

It’s been reported that Facebook then bought the domain name Facebook.com in August 2005 for a reported $200,000.

It looks like the video may go viral with the help of TechCrunch, but at the time of this story it has just over 1,000 views on YouTube.

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Movies News

“The Social Network” movie references domain name change from TheFacebook.com to Facebook.com

the facebook

If you haven’t seen “The Social Network” yet, you should check it out especially if you are part of the domain industry. 

In theaters now, the movie takes viewers through the early beginnings of Facebook. 

In one scene, Sean Parker who co-founded Napster and was played by Justin Timberlake in the film, advises Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin during their first dinner meeting to drop the word “the” in the company’s name and web address: TheFacebook.com.  

In late August 2005, Aboutface Corporation sold the domain name Facebook.com to Facebook for a reported $200,000. 

That might not seem like much given Facebook’s estimated valuation is in the billions, but back in 2005 who would’ve thought the company would be so big?

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Movies News

IndependenceDay.com – unused internet property by 20th Century Fox, What a Shame

"Independence Day"
Independence Day comes with plenty of big fireworks, family fun, cookouts and a slew of local and nationwide events each year.

Independence Day, otherwise known as the Fourth of July here in the United States, commemorates the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Contintental Congress on July 4, 1776.  

Independence Day also happens to be a Fox Film that debuted in 1996 and at one point according to Wikipedia – had the second highest worldwide gross of all time with a combined $816,969,268 in domestic and international box offices.

All that and more, but the domain name IndependenceDay.com (which is owned by Fox Film) doesn’t even resolve to a web page.

Fox owns thousands of domains

The unused domain, which has a stellar search volume of nearly 250,000 exact global searches, could make a massive splash on the internet, but instead, the killer domain sits under a pile of domain names owned by Fox – nearly 20,000 of them.

What a shame, that such a great domain isn’t worth pursuing development – or for that matter, even worth redirecting to one of the Fox Film pages.

FourthofJuly.com which is owned by Verimedia, Inc – redirects to GreetingCards.com.