Studio's goal: 'Super 8' preview tweets

Paramount Pictures is reversing course on its supersecret marketing campaign for "Super 8," holding sneak previews Thursday night aimed at loose-tongued Twitter users around the country.

The move follows reports earlier this week that the science-fiction film from producer Steven Spielberg and director J.J. Abrams ("Star Trek") has generated less-than-expected interest among moviegoers, who have been kept in the dark by trailers and advertisements that reveal next to nothing about the plot or characters.

Now, in an about-face, Paramount is publicizing the previews through Twitter and encouraging users to "share information about the movie with friends" using the hashtag #Super8Secret. That's a break with standard sneak-preview protocol, in which studios often ban cell phones to prevent the spread of images and spoilers.

As an added incentive, some theaters will throw in free popcorn.

Until recently, about all moviegoers knew about "Super 8" came from this bare-bones synopsis from Paramount: "In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making a Super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident." Trailers showed a train door being pummeled from the inside by a powerful creature, but the creature itself was never shown.

That strategy, which traded largely on the names of Abrams and Spielberg, may have backfired. New York magazine cited a poll that found that only 64 percent of respondents were even aware of the film, while a mere 36 percent expressed "definite interest" in seeing it. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount has begun downplaying its box-office expectations, aiming for a roughly

$25-million opening weekend. That would seem a relatively modest sum for a movie that, until recently, had been poised as a summer blockbuster.

Local theaters playing "Super 8" can be found at super8-movie.com/sneak.