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SALT LAKE CITY -- The 2011 summer movie season is oversaturated with superheroes, but one superhero film that is quite possibly the most anticipated of all time won't be released for another year.
Christopher Nolan's third and final installment of his vision of Batman, The Dark Knight Rises, started filming a week ago, and Nolan has already rolled out an online campaign for the film that takes marketing to a whole new level. Nolan is notorious for keeping his projects close to the chest. For example, the details and plot of Nolan's 2010 summer blockbuster, ‘ Inception' weren't released until the film premiered and people saw the mind-bending film for themselves. I don't expect TDKR to be much different.
The official website for the film was launched Monday, but there wasn't much to see. It's just a black background and an audio file of seemingly indiscernible chanting. But a user on the message board Super Hero Hype.com knew there was more to the site than met the eye. That's possibly because he knew of the online marketing campaign Nolan launched for ‘ The Dark Knight' when he first revealed the Joker to the world.
The user plugged the audio file into the recording program Spectrum and found that the audio says, "#TheFireRises." The clever user then recognized the message as a Twitter hashtag and soon uncovered the first image from Nolan's Batman swan song.
By tweeting the hashtag an image will slowly appear on the site of the film's villain, Bane, Tom Hardy. To say the image is a bit intimidating is an understatement. In the comics, Bane is a fierce villain who not only has massive strength, but also a superior intellect. Bane is well known as the man who broke Batman's back and turned him into a quadriplegic in one of the comic's storylines.
So, if fans weren't already antsy for the release of ‘The Dark Knight Rises', they certainly are now. What are your expectations of the upcoming film? What do you think of Bane's new look? And what are your thoughts on Nolan's encrypted web campaign? Let us know on our comment boards and on Facebook.
E-mail: jclyde@ksl.com
