Rogue Pictures Unites With Tongal to Create MacGruber Video Contest

AUSTIN, Texas, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Rogue Pictures and Tongal, the leading creative crowdsourcing company, today announce a marketing partnership and immersive campaign to leverage their collaborative social media platform to support the premiere of MacGruber, the new action comedy that brings Saturday Night Live's soldier of fortune to the big screen, during SXSW, on Monday, March 15.  Tongal will launch a full-scale crowdsourcing and social media campaign where fans will create MacGruber-inspired videos based on one-liners from the movie.

"We're excited to partner with Tongal and tap their cutting-edge social media platform to enable fans to be a part of the MacGruber experience in a creative and fun way that generates buzz for the movie," said Randall Cox, EVP International Business and Corporate Development of Relativity Media.  "We're always looking for innovative ways to engage audiences online and this endeavor perfectly captures the spirit of the MacGruber character and the film."

Tongal is supporting the launch of the campaign with a booth at SXSW where people can submit concepts each day and receive MacGruber promotional items.  The videos will be created using Tongal's powerful collaborative, competition platform which harnesses all the phases of the campaign including creative concepts, video, prediction and most viewed.

Phase one of the campaign will challenge contest participants to pitch a new MacGruber scene using 250 text characters or less using their choice of one line of dialogue from the movie.  A panel of judges will select five winning pitches and announce on tongal.com/macgruber on March 30 to move on to phase two where participants get to film and submit a 90-second video segment based on their choice of the top five pitches.  There is also a competition for fans to weigh in and try to win prizes by watching the video submissions and predicting which five MacGruber videos will win the competition.

"We're excited to bring such a cool property like MacGruber to our community of creators and to have the opportunity to unite with Rogue on this campaign," said James DeJulio, President and co-founder, Tongal.  "Embracing the fanbase and inviting them to participate in the creative process has become critical to engage consumers."

Video creators will be incentivized to accumulate views by sharing the videos to popular social networking sites via the Tongal proprietary player during the weeks leading up to the film's release on May 21.  The first place video will win a 'Hometown Screening' of MacGruber and the five winning videos will receive cash prizes.

About RELATIVITY MEDIA

Relativity Media, LLC ("RML") is a media and entertainment company which focuses on creating, financing and distributing first class, studio quality entertainment content and intellectual property across multiple platforms, as well as making strategic partnerships with, and opportunistic investments in, media and entertainment related companies and assets. RML owns and operates Rogue, a company that specializes in the production and distribution of lower-budget genre films, which has had particular success within the horror genre including The Unborn and The Strangers. Building upon its foundation of financing and producing films, RML has grown to include music, sports and television divisions and the next-generation social network iamrogue.com. Relativity also owns and operates RelativityREAL, Relativity's television arm, which has become one of the leading suppliers of reality television with over 20 shows in episodic or pilot. RelativityREAL is run by Tom Foreman, his past success include Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Kid Nation.

To date, Relativity has committed to, produced and/or financed more than 200 studio-quality motion pictures through 2014. Released films have accumulated more than $11.6 billion in worldwide box office revenue.  Relativity's recent films include: Zombieland, Couples Retreat, The Ugly Truth, Public Enemies, Fast and the Furious and Paul Blart: Mall Cop and most recently, Brothers, Nine, The Spy Next Door and out this weekend, Dear John. Upcoming films for Relativity include: MacGruber, Season of the Witch, Fighter and Sanctum. Twenty-eight of the company's films have opened at #1 at the box office.  Relativity films have earned 35 Oscar® nominations, including nods for: Frost/Nixon, Atonement, American Gangster, and 3:10 To Yuma. Forty of RML's films have each generated over $100 million in worldwide box office receipts.

About ROGUE

Rogue is a lifestyle brand that appeals to an audience with a passion for and a desire to participate in shaping the future of entertainment. The website, IAMROGUE.COM, is the first-ever media content network where audiences can and will influence popular culture, media and society along with the insiders who make it all happen. ROGUE is a division of Relativity Media, LLC. http://www.iamrogue.com

About TONGAL

Founded with the goal of democratizing the way online content is created, Tongal bridges the gap between creative people around the world and businesses that need them. The company launched its unique online platform that combines crowdsourcing and performance games to deliver professional-quality commercials, music videos, short films and instructional videos in May 2009. Tongal believes that in today's world, a great idea or video can come from anywhere, so now they are proving it by building a collaborative community that gives creative individuals with a variety of skill sets an opportunity to work, connect with one another, express themselves and get paid for what they love to do. http://www.tongal.com  

SOURCE Tongal