The Knight is Coming

So unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months you may not know about the huge sequel summer the movie studios have in store for us. Moviefone.com recently did an online poll of 2,000 movie goers to rank their interests in upcoming movies on a scale from one to five. The number one movie to clock in was Indiana Jones, but seeing as how I have never really watched a single one of them (I know, I know), we are going to talk about number 2 (which I'm very excited about), The Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight is the sequel to the 2005 summer hit Batman Begins which brought in over $200 million total. The story continues along the same trail as before following Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) in his heroic attempt to rid Gotham City from evil. The second movie will see two bad guys, including the all time favorite villain made famous by Jack Nicholson, The Joker. Harvey Dent, aka Two Face will also be in this film and is portrayed by Aaron Eckhart.

So far the movie has be producing a lot of buzz but with no real marketing campaign. The main website only features a political campaign poster for Harvey Dent and the studio has yet to release anything beyond a teaser trailer. The original viral marketing campaign set up by 42 Entertainment allowed users to piece away the political poster to eventually reveal the face of Heath Ledger as the joker. The site has since be taken down however.

Another viral marketing campaign entitled "Anticipation" was launched for the movie shortly after its release of the teaser trailer at the 2007 Comic Con. Apparently Warner Bros. created a mini scavenger hunt for all their loyal fans at the convention where they could view the new trailer as well as see teaser photos for the new film.

Of course it wouldn't be a Batman movie without the Mattel toys that follow, but what is most interesting is what Six Flags seems to be doing with their amusement parks for the movie. Chicago's (where the movie was filmed) very own Six Flags Great America, Jackson NJ's Six Flag's Great Adventure, and Six Flag's New England in Agawam MA will all be constructing and debuting its newest roller coaster entitled...thats rights, you guessed it, the Dark Knight in May of 2008. The ride will strap in riders as Gotham City patrons who are caught in a battle between Batman and the Joker.

Move Over Lord of the Rings

So I have to admit I have been saving this blog for some time now because of all the excitement I have inside of me for this movie. I remember in high school when I first read The Golden Compass and was enthralled by the world Phillip Pullman created. It seems New Line Cinema has bought the rights to this film and are planning on releasing the first installment, The Golden Compass, this December. The film actually has some big name actors including Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coutler and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel. I am just hoping this movie leaves a lot better taste in my mouth than the last book-to-film movie I watched, Eragon.

It seems New Line is definitely selling out quite the pretty penny for this film. The studio is spending $150 million dollars on the first installment , which is more than half of what is cost the studio to produce all of the LOTR films . Showing of the trailer began six months prior to its release during the summer at Pirates of the Carribean: At Worlds End, and has showed no signs of stopping yet.

Since you can expect not to any brand tie ins since the movie takes place in an entirely different world, New Line has used their web site as their biggest marketing tool. The site allows you to customize it among sixteen different languages showing the broad range of audiences it hopes to attract opening day. The site begins by allowing you to explore Lyra's world as well as the people and their daemons that populate it. The site also explains to users what the movie is about just in case someone enticed by the trailer hasn't actually read any of the books.

The coolest part about the web site however adheres to coolest part about the books. In Lyra's world, each person is accompanied by a daemon (pretty much your soul that lives on the outside of your body). As a child, you daemon can shape shift from animal to animal depending on how you are feeling, but settles into a phase as you get older. The web site allows people to figure out what their daemon would eventually settle into if they lived in Lyra's world and what this means about their personality.

New Line has also tied in an agreement to show the trailer at the Rockefeller Center are the opening of the ice rink on October 9th. This promotion will eventually end in November which will result in one lucky fan to win a trip to England.

New Line has actually went as far as debuting and extended five minute long preview at the Comic Con held back in February. This clip gives viewers a much deeper look into the movie and a better glimpse at what is to come. Check it out below!

Disney and Pixar are back for more

Ok, so I'm not really sure if it's ok for me to like cartoons being that I'm at the age of 21, but I have to tell you when Disney and Pixar get together to make a movie, I can't help but go and watch it. Well the fearsome twosome are at it again. After the release of their smash hit Ratatouille which brought in over $200 million, the gang will now shift from Paris to space.

The newest movie to be added to the ranks is Wall-E, the story about a robot who is literally, the last thing alive on earth. The story takes place in the future when humans have destroyed the planet. To solve the problem of cleaning up all the junk they create cleaner robots. The humans leave earth in hopes of returning. The problem occurs when the programming fails, and the robot program fails. Well, that is, all except for Wall-E, whose programming didn't fail. Watch out ladies and gentlemen, he's a one man cleaning crew. The surprising thing is this is actually a love story about Wall-E and another robot named EVE who was sent back to earth to see what was happening.

Disney showed off their first trailer way back in June , allowing it to follow the common trail of being advertised during the premier of their newest creation. Their brand new trailer, which was freshly released on October 1st, gives viewers a slightly better view of what the movie will look like. Disney has also slapped in a nice little advertisement in the beginning of the Ratatouille video game introducing the movie in an infomercial style about the Wall-E robots. The advertisement prompts you to visit the corporations site at Buy N Large to find out more about their Wall-E line of robots. I highly recommend checking out this site. You can tell Disney and Pixar definitely put out a pretty penny to make this extremely nice site.

Check out the preview below of the newest Wall-E trailer. I have to admit, the little guys is pretty cool so I think this will be another movie I will have to kidnap my little cousins for to go and see (that way I don't look weird in a movie theater full of ten year olds. Everyone wins in this situation).