Critically and commercially a smash, a sequel was inevitable. Enter The Dark Knight, due summer 2008. As the excitement builds, the sequel rumor mill goes into overdrive, particularly concerning the look of the Clown Prince of Crime himself, Heath Ledger IS The Joker.
Every week promises a new development; the Joker's look revealed! Hold on, it's a blurry long shot. Okay, here's a better look! Oh wait, it was a fake. Sorry, I guess we'll just have to wait until the trailer hits...
But wait. In a rare instance of working with the fans instead of against them, Warner Brothers created a site in which users were prompted to enter their email address to reveal the appearance of Batman's greatest foe... one agonizing pixel at a time. After a few days, we got a look:
Brilliant. Scary. Lon Chaney meets The Crow. Considering how masterfully handled the psychological aspects of Batman Begins were, my excitement for Nolan's take on the Joker is at its peak. Nolan let the Scarecrow, and the general atmosphere, for that matter, be SCARY. We saw Batman not just as a figure of mystery and intrigue, (He plays with wonderful toys, after all.) but of horror. Criminals are scarred of him, hence his effectiveness as a superhero. As the old saw goes, a great hero needs a great villain and sequel promises a conflict that fans are clamoring for.The final scene in Begins primed the pump for a sequel like few I've ever seen; when Gary Oldman flipped over that playing card, ("...got a taste for the theatrical...") an electric charge shot through the audience. We were ready to take that leap immediately because we were in the hands of the real thing. I felt that if the projectionist had the sequel ready to go right then, not a single person would've moved a muscle.
Count me in.
1 comment:
Instead of getting their litigous panties in a wad, they made it work for them. It's not quite Snake on a Plane level of marketing genius, but it doesn't need to be with that kind of strong story behind it.
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