Say, I wonder how the lackluster film adaptation of Choke is doing at the box office? The Cult, Chuck Palahniuk’s fansite, has announced a contest:

Clark Gregg and I got on the phone yesterday and decided that we needed to hit the ball out of the park this weekend with the box office numbers on CHOKE. …if CHOKE doesn’t at least crack the top ten in this upcoming weekend’s box office, it’s chances for being around much longer are slim. What’s sad is, CHOKE is competing against movies that opened up in over four times as many theaters. But it’s still averaging better than most on a per theater basis! Why? Because it’s a great film! And it’s one that needs our support! And dammit, that’s what we’re gonna do!

So Clark and I came up with a way to challenge as many people as we could to go see CHOKE this weekend… with as many people as they can convince to go.

THE CONTEST:

We need everyone reading this post right now to go see CHOKE this weekend. But before you do, we need you to email this post to everyone you know. Contact everyone in your address book. Everyone you work with. All of your family and extended family. Everyone on your MySpace page. Your Facebook page. EVERYONE!!!

If you’ve already seen it, go see it again. If it’s more than 50 miles away from where you live, leave enough time for the drive. If it’s out of state, make it your day.

The person who gets the most people to go, gets a character named after them in Chuck’s next book. Yes, this is for real. Clark and I spoke to Chuck on the phone yesterday, and he’s completely on board with this.

Chuck fan reactions, including accusations of desperation, sheep mentality, and vaselined Michael Jackson glitter gloves, are after the jump:

Most of the thread after this announcement has to do with figuring out ways to get the most tickets to Choke without actually sending an announcement to everyone in your address book:

just photoshopping a fistful of tickets?

Stand by the door to the exit of the theater asking for tickets?

And then the moderator gets mad:

Hey guys,

Do me a favor and quit expending so much open thought into how to scheme something that me, Clark and Chuck all worked hard to give you.

Jesus, are you with us or against us? I honestly can’t tell sometimes.

And after that, things get crazy:

OK. I usually say nothing, but while I know the e-mails and big-time marketing push comes from a good place, STOP IT. It’s not the desperation that kills me; it’s the sheep mentality that if you tell me to do something, I’m going to go do it in blind adoration. That shit worked in the 80s circa Michael Jackson Moon Walk and left glitter glove. However, thank to the Internet, that glitter glove has been Vaselined so many times that it just doesn’t work.

Sometimes online marketing goes awry, is all I’m saying.