As February 1994 rolled in, strange flyers began appearing across alleyways and lampposts in New York, Chicago, Toronto, and Los Angeles. Tacked onto bus stops and subway station walls were weathered-looking "Missing" posters bearing the names and photos of three film students: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams. Their profiles were stark. Last seen in October 1993, allegedly filming a documentary near a wooded town in Maryland. No contact since. Beneath their photos, family members were pleading for help.
At the Newhouse building on Sixth Avenue, a crisis meeting was underway. The sudden emergence of these posters hadn't been cleared with the usual promotional teams. And yet, the buzz was immediate.
Colette Singer, the head of Film Distribution, was stunned. "Who's releasing the posters? Are they ours? Why didn't we run with them?" She turned sharply to her marketing division, eyes narrowed. "Weren't we supposed to be the professionals here? Why didn't any of you pick this up?"
One of the junior marketers, visibly sweating, fumbled for an answer. "It… it looks like they went up overnight, ma'am. Probably guerilla-style. Newhouse newspapers are already covering it as if it's real."
"And why the hell aren't we the ones driving this campaign?" Colette snapped.
Simultaneously, inside a private conference room at Fox's Century City headquarters, the executives of both the Film and TV divisions gathered for a discreet conversation.
Mark Klebanoff, a mid-level TV programming exec, held up a fresh copy of the New York Post. "This is the fourth front-page spread we've run across Newhouse papers. All of them covering the same missing persons story. Same three kids. It's coordinated."
"Well, that can't be coincidence," said Daniel Carr, head of Fox TV Features. "Did Film authorize this?"
"No, and that's the weird part," someone muttered from the Film side.
Then came the knock. A Fox intern entered the room and slid a white envelope onto the center of the table. "This was just found on the front steps. No return address."
Inside: a battered-looking VHS tape. Alongside it, a diary, partially water-damaged, handwritten in frantic scrawl. The pages detailed the last few days of the three missing students. Disjointed entries mentioned strange sounds in the woods, missing time, strange symbols on trees… and something watching them from the darkness.
Daniel Carr set the tape in the VCR and turned on the TV. Static burst to life. Then shaky, handheld footage appeared. Night shots. Trees. Panic. Screams in the distance.
"This is gold," someone whispered.
By the time the tape ended, the room was silent. Then, Mark leaned forward. "We need to air this. Special feature. True crime angle. If this is legit… or even halfway real… we've got ratings."
The agreement was instant. No one wanted to admit it aloud, but they knew: whether staged or not, this story was magnetic. The room buzzed with unspoken excitement, a current of something electric and dangerous.
As the team started laying out plans for the special feature, Colette Singer's phone rang.
She glanced at the number and answered with a clipped, "Singer."
Amanda Newhouse's voice was crisp and smug. "Amanda here. Did you like the surprise?"
Colette froze for a heartbeat, then leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowing as everything clicked into place. "Amanda… that was you?"
Amanda laughed. "Ben's idea, actually. He only came up with it a few days ago—printed ten thousand of each of the posters himself, can you believe that? Then he called me in for help. I couldn't say no."
Colette let out a stunned breath, half-laughing. "Yes, well… it was a surprise. A pleasant one. But why wasn't it run past us earlier? We wouldn't have said no!"
Amanda's voice was amused. "That's exactly why we didn't. You would've said yes and then turned it into some studio-approved bore fest with a disclaimer attached."
"I'm still going to need an invoice for this," Colette said, only half-joking.
Amanda didn't miss a beat. "Oh, don't worry. I'm billing this to Fox. PR charges. 'Field marketing and public interest campaign led by Star Talent Brokerage.' Sounds official, doesn't it?"
Colette snorted. "Seriously?"
"We're a new firm. Ben's a young director who wants to promote his film. Besides, it was decided Fox would be footing the bill for marketing, right?," Amanda replied breezily. "Fox should be supporting us. We're benefiting you, right?"
Colette rolled her eyes, though her grin betrayed her admiration. "You guys always take away the fun."
"We are the fun, Colette," Amanda said before hanging up.
Colette placed the phone down slowly, then looked up at the room. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, raising an eyebrow, "we've been hijacked by two kids and a camcorder."
Nobody laughed.
Because deep down, they all knew—those kids had just made magic.
Later that evening, under instructions from the upper ranks, the Fox TV team assembled their most adaptable program: America's Unsolved Files, hosted by the dependable, gravel-voiced newsman, Tom Jarrett, and sharp-tongued co-host Lisa Darrow. They teased a national exclusive with the recovered tape from Maryland.
When the program aired on Friday, February 4, 1994, it stunned the country.
"We found an incredible video," Tom Jarrett intoned solemnly, holding up the diary on live camera. "This came to us anonymously. Dropped on our Fox TV Headquarters doorsteps. It appears to document the final journey of three missing college students. We urge viewer discretion."
The studio lights dimmed slightly as the footage flickered to life on the screen beside him.
"But first," Tom continued, tapping the notepad, "some details on how this landed on our doorstep."
A second camera slowly zoomed in on him as he held up a still image—a grainy figure in a black overcoat with a hood obscuring his face, caught mid-step in a dimly lit hallway.
"This individual," Tom said, "was captured only briefly by a single hallway security guard. According to the statement, the man wore a long black overcoat and a hoodie. He entered quietly, placed the envelope containing the tape and the diary at our front desk, and left without a word."
He paused, letting the mystery hang in the air.
"Unfortunately, the CCTV system covering the reception area was down just after this moment that day. Technical issues. We're looking into it."
An image of the studio's main lobby faded onto the screen—empty, unremarkable.
"The only security personnel on shift said he saw the man heading for the exit. When he stepped away to call out, the visitor had already vanished. No trace. No name. No license plate. Nothing."
A hushed murmur rippled through the live studio audience.
Tom's expression darkened. "Someone didn't want to be found."
The screen shifted again—this time, showing the damaged Hi-8 footage. Grainy, shaky images. Trees. Breathing. A flashlight beam cutting through fog.
The room fell dead silent.
The video rolled. A short, five-minute segment. Jittery black-and-white images of trees, the flicker of a campfire, anxious voices whispering in the dark.
"We don't know what's out there… but it's not an animal," Heather's voice trembled on the tape. "We found something. Oh my God…"
The screen faded back to the hosts.
Lisa Darrow followed. "Their names are Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard. They vanished in October 1993. They were believed to be filming a documentary about an old legend in the Maryland woods—'The Blair Witch.'"
"What happened to them?" Tom asked.
"Why wasn't more done when they disappeared? Why did search teams give up?" Lisa questioned further.
The audience reacted explosively.
Phone lines lit up. Viewers flooded police stations across the country. Messages poured in.
"God, do witches really exist in the world?"
"I really hope they're safe and sound…"
"Damn the search team. They didn't even try!"
"We must act! They can't just vanish!"
By morning, News Corporation's outlets — The New York Post, TV Guide, People Magazine — ran full features on the missing students, headlined: THE BLAIR WITCH CASE: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE WOODS?
Local Maryland news channels picked up the story. Then came the politicians.
Senator Vaughn from Maryland, running for re-election, fired off a press release: "This is exactly what happens when our state prioritizes PR over public safety. Three students went missing, and nothing was done?"
His opponent, Senator Caldwell, clapped back by noon: "This is fear-mongering. There's no confirmed link to supernatural activity—only tragic mismanagement from Vaughn's own leadership."
Back at the Star Talent Brokerage office, Amanda Newhouse sat in her usual spot—a deep burgundy leather chair tucked near the wide windows of her second-floor corner suite—her heels kicked off, feet tucked beneath her, and a thick stack of press clippings fanned out on the coffee table. She had just finished skimming the fourth article linking the Blair Witch to real unsolved disappearances in Maryland when her cousin Julian, from the Newhouse editorial division, pushed open the door with his usual lack of ceremony.
He looked downright giddy.
"Amanda, it's working," Julian said, waving a faxed memo in his hand. "Post circulation's up nineteen-point-three percent this week. Nineteen! Every single syndicated local outfit is quoting our headlines directly. We've even got Today Show researchers sniffing around."
Amanda blinked, stunned. "Nineteen percent?"
Julian nodded. "It's absurd. Even the horoscope section got more engagement because people think witches are real now."
Amanda let out a low whistle and leaned back in her chair, eyes scanning the full-page spread of a "Missing Students: Witch Behind It All?" tabloid-style article printed in The Sun-Times Weekly. She snapped the page closed.
"Alright," she said, regaining focus. "We need more materials. Letters. Sketchbooks. High school project photos. The sort of thing that gets picked up and reprinted without verification."
Julian smirked. "Already ahead of you. I've got two freelancers in Baltimore writing up first-person memories of the students—old dorm mates, neighbor recollections. I'll have a half dozen stories on your desk by morning. Won't cost us a dime. Just a couple lunch vouchers."
Amanda nodded approvingly, already reaching for the file cabinet beside her desk. "I'll prep some handwritten pages. Creepy, but vague. The kind people project onto. And Julian—remind Legal this is theatrical fiction. We'll need the disclaimers buried but present."
Julian turned, grinning ear to ear. "God, I love this story."
Amanda rolled her eyes affectionately as he disappeared down the hall.
Amanda sighed, sipping her coffee. "So does Ben. And apparently now, so does the entire country."
Later that evening, Amanda met Helen in the boardroom. The two sat across from each other in an unusually quiet moment, the hum of a fax machine the only background noise.
She informed Helen about Julian's visit and the progress with the public opinion on the three missing college students and witches.
"Fox told us they expected maybe a $50 million ceiling," Helen said, arms folded, eyes unreadable. "Truthfully, they didn't think we'd even hit thirty. That's where the tiered share kicks in."
Amanda nodded, holding a cup of tea between her hands. "Ben never seemed worried."
"No," Helen said. "He was all-in from the beginning. Betting on the campaign, the mystique… the fear." She paused. "But now? With senators weighing in, and the nation gripped? I think your boy's gonna be a millionaire a lot sooner than he thinks."
Amanda gave a small, conspiratorial smile. "He might even reach the 20% cap."
Helen leaned back in her chair with a dry laugh. "At this rate, I shouldn't have loaned him the forty grand to make the movie—I should've invested in the movie instead."
Amanda burst out laughing. "Too late. He's already gone public."
Helen sipped her coffee, deadpan. "And I missed the IPO."
They didn't say anything for a while after that.
In just one week, a $40,000 film project had set the cultural landscape on fire. And The Blair Witch Project hadn't even released yet.