The Ultimate Hack
The Ultimate Hack
The Ultimate Hack
Instead of marketing the first Matrix to the mainstream by traditional means, they created a cult following on the internet. Marketing for maximum sociological impact with an audience who essentially controlled the internet and the spread of its content was pure marketing genius.
The story itself was not only interesting on screen, but it stimulated conversation, debates, particularly online, where the film's target audience could identify with the prime characters, being hackers or wannabe hackers, they felt they had been spoken to directly and that they were a part of it, i.e. changing their handles to Neo, Morph, Trinity, etc.
In deed, they were a part of it; they were a part of a mass promotional scheme of the film to millions of people by creating a subculture within a subculture in the biggest promotional pipeline available, the internet. By doing this, the film's popularity spread like a virus, and was the ultimate hack. So, I'm going to say it was initially the internet cult following that made the first one such a success, and of course marketing the rest of the series to the masses through all available outlets like it was the second coming of Christ enveloped the general mainstream.