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Joss Whedon mails gifts to fans who watch 'In Your Eyes'

The folks behind the Joss Whedon-scripted indie drama “In Your Eyes” have been randomly sending out some pretty awesome gifts to people who paid to watch the film online, including posters, scripts, and even video game consoles. As if fans of Whedon needed more reasons to like the guy!

“In Your Eyes” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, and was quickly made available online shortly thereafter, eschewing the traditional theatrical distribution in favour of a video-on-demand rental model. That move wasn’t all that groundbreaking for an indie film like this, but what happened next was pretty unusual.

People around the globe who rented “In Your Eyes” on Vimeo soon started receiving unusual thank you packages from Whedon and company.

"The cast and crew of ‘In Your Eyes’ thank you for supporting the film by renting it on Vimeo On Demand,” the notes said. ”Enclosed is a little token of our appreciation."

Tweets from as far away as Germany, New Zealand, and Dubai soon started popping up. Those “little tokens” included everything from signed posters and shooting scripts, to cacti, mini-grills, Rokus, Apple TVs, and even Xbox Ones.

Not a bad way to thank your supporters, Joss! No word on just how long the clever viral promotion will continue now that the secret is out, but according to "In Your Eyes" producer Michael Roiff it will go on for as long as people keep renting the film.

“The idea was we’re doing something a little different, and we just want to say thank you,” Roiff told BuzzFeed. “Someone said on social media, like, ‘Oh, it’s almost like they got Kickstarter backwards and they’re doing it in reverse.’ That is sort of what we’re doing, saying, you know what, this is working out, and we want to say thanks and give something back, and try to keep people talking so we can keep doing it this way.”

While only a small percentage of viewers will receive thank you gifts (the cost is coming out of the profits), you can bet a whole lot more people will be chipping in $5 to see "In Your Eyes" on the off chance they'll get a new Xbox out of it.