It seems internet virals are now getting their own movies. The Strangers director, Bryan Bertino, is now planning a movie called This Man, based on an online hoax, although of course the supernatural thriller will take it seriously (indeed, the filmmakers already seem to be trying to say it’s true, as Variety refers to is as being ‘fact-based’).
Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures is producing the film, which is about an ordinary man who discovers that people he has never met are seeing him in their dreams. He then sets out to try and discover why he’s the source of nightmares for people around the world.
The film is based on a website called ThisMan.org, which purports to have been created be to foster discussion and communication between people all around the world who claim to have seen the same person in their dreams (yep, the one in the picture). Although a lot of people claim they have seen him (as you’d expect with any slightly odd idea that takes hold on the Internet), the site appears to be a hoax, set up by Italian sociologist/marketing guru Andrea Natella, presumably to show how these sorts of things can take hold on the internet. and also see how people can come to believe something this this.
However while the website says no living person has ever been recognised who fits the description of the dream man, it’s a pretty neat idea of the filmmakers to reverse things, so you see everything through the eyes of the person everybody is dreaming about.