These three pro­mo­tional shots (one of which we have seen before, but clouded with cover page texts) come via Comics2Film. I par­tic­u­larly love the last image, which at first glance appears to be unre­lated, until you notice the mask.

As some of you are aware, The Dark Knight movie will be pre­ceeded by a multi-part animé story, sim­i­lar to the way that the Ani­ma­trix worked — although as of late details about this project have been in short supply.

Just Press Play have a brand new screen cap via the lat­est Wiz­ard Uni­verse issue, illus­trat­ing one of the new animé sto­ry­lines, it does look incred­iby awesome.

For the low-down on the six short films in the animé I rec­om­mend read­ing our older post, pre­vi­ously thought to be lost in the depths of our archives. The DVD is set for a direct to video release close to July, but we should see a lot more of the Gotham Knight before then.

We are the Answer, part of The Dark Knight’s viral mar­ket­ing cam­paign, www​.wearethean​swer​.org, has updated and sent out emails to thank every­one that rat­ted out on the cor­rupt police offi­cers of Gotham City:

Adam at Hol­ly­wood Chicago received this email:

Dear cit­i­zen,

Today is a momen­tous day for Gotham and for all of us who have par­tic­i­pated in We Are The Answer.

Tips from con­cerned cit­i­zens like you are help­ing to bring cor­rupt offi­cers to jus­tice. You can be proud that you have aided your fel­low cit­i­zens in tak­ing the first step toward a safer city.

Due to the over­whelm­ing cit­i­zen response, we at We Are The Answer are pour­ing through an avalanche of police cor­rup­tion tips.

We should be through with the cur­rent back­log of tips by the very begin­ning of the New Year.

Thank you again. The good cit­i­zens of Gotham have to stick together to fight crime and cor­rup­tion. All of us have a brighter future to look for­ward to.

Whilst the web­site has added this new mes­sage — the bit at the very bot­tom is inter­est­ing — it implies that a new viral cam­paign may start up some­time in the New Year (when they have got through the back­log that is):

 UPDATE: First Police Offi­cers Indicted Thanks To We Are The Answer

We Are The Answer has been over­whelmed by the reac­tion of Gotham cit­i­zens since we asked for your help. Thou­sands of con­cerned men and women who are out­raged at how Gotham City has been betrayed by the very peo­ple who are sup­posed to defend us have flooded this web­site with tips.

All of your sub­mis­sions are being inves­ti­gated, and We Are The Answer today announces the indict­ment of two GPD offi­cers for cor­rup­tion. It is with sad­ness, not pride, that We Are The Answer seems to have shown in a mat­ter of weeks how deep the cor­rup­tion in Gotham goes.

These offi­cers are Jason McCree and Larry Coniglia. McCree is sus­pected of accept­ing bribes. Larry Coniglia is under sus­pi­cion of inter­fer­ing in an inves­ti­ga­tion, rack­e­teer­ing, and assault. Coniglia is also being inves­ti­gated for the death of a Chechen gang mem­ber who died in a police hold­ing cell.

It is impor­tant to note that these offi­cers are inno­cent until proven guilty. We Are The Answer will con­tinue to fight to clean up GPD, and ensure that police offi­cers are work­ing for the cit­i­zens of Gotham and not its criminals.

Work­ing with GPD’s Inter­nal Affairs and Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney Har­vey Dent, We Are The Answer has taken the first step to tak­ing back our streets from crime and cor­rup­tion. Thanks to all Gotham cit­i­zens who have helped us in this essen­tial endeavor.

NOTE: Due to the over­whelm­ing cit­i­zen response, we at We Are The Answer are pour­ing through an avalanche of police cor­rup­tion tips. We should be through with the cur­rent back­log of tips by the very begin­ning of the New Year

We all like to see high res­o­lu­tion pic­tures, today I have two of them for you. The first is a whop­ping 300dpi 100mb ver­sion of the teaser poster. To illus­trate the detail of a pic­ture like this, here’s a fully sized extract:

The more astute will have noticed a link to this file on Why So Seri­ous. It appears to the bot­tom right of the nor­mal sized picture:

Down­load 100mb poster image

(beware, 100mb down­load may take a while!)
If this link suf­fers under the traf­fic, etc, here is a handy mir­ror site: Alter­nate Download

Next up we have the medium-to-high res­o­lu­tion ver­sion of that Empire mag­a­zine cover thanks to David:

Down­load (only 420kb this time)

So, yes­ter­day evening the Why So Seri­ous viral mar­ket­ing cam­paign that we have been par­tic­i­pat­ing in as of late came to its con­clu­sion by unveil­ing The Dark Knight teaser poster.

This post is a catch-up entry to fill in the gaps between the “step right up” chal­lenge and the release of the poster. My last post revealed a num­ber of scary cud­dly toys with loca­tions pinned to their bel­lies, at each of these loca­tions was a bak­ery with a cake, inside of which was an evi­dence bag con­tain­ing a phone, a joker card and a note. When each cake was grabbed, the bear was removed and we all came one step closer to hit­ting the bell.

Here are some more pic­tures of the cakes via our friends at Hol­ly­wood Chicago:

When all of these cakes were dis­cov­ered, hit­ting the bell won the prize… and click­ing through lead you to an evi­dence page with two joker cards:

Each of the cards is a link, the left card takes you to the poster page, which we have all seen by now. The right takes you to a sign up page for what looks to be some pre­view screen­ings in IMAX cin­e­mas across the coun­try — the pro­logue perhaps?

And here’s a pic­ture of the ticket via Hol­ly­wood Chicago:

Update: Bat­sean has been to the bak­ery to get his cake…

The note says:

“Wow, you really took the cake! Now, put the icing on it: call (phone num­ber) imme­di­ately from this phone and THIS PHONE ONLY. Do NOT give this phone num­ber to any­one else.

Let’s hope your fel­low goons come through as well as you. Once all the lay­ers are in place, you’ll all get your just desserts. I’m a man of my word”

Step Right Up

The count­down on the lat­est why so seri­ous viral mar­ket­ing puz­zle has come to an end, and revealed the final challenge.

www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​s​t​e​p​r​i​g​h​t​up/

Hang­ing from the stall in front of you are, as of now, 6 cud­dly toys, although not at all cute. Each of them has a loca­tion pinned on, a loca­tion that, by instruc­tion, you must travel to and not call.

The instruc­tions also ask you to go under the name “Robin Banks” (aka Rob­bing Banks) at each of these places, with “One per loca­tion, first come, first served”. It seems that each of these is a bak­ery store, with the prize being some­sort of bak­ery delight with an attached phone num­ber. Some of the bears are already start­ing to dis­ap­pear, and with each new dis­cov­ery the mal­let on the left hits a lit­tle harder.

Hit­ting the base of the machine used to invoke a pathet­i­cally small rise of the weight, not even enough to light the first level.

EDIT: Chal­lenge unveiled.

Via Hol­ly­wood Chicago:

humanresources@​whysoserious.​com has sent out a new WhySoSe​ri​ous​.com
mes­sage and code for “The Dark Knight” viral marketing:

Heads up, clown! Tomor­row means that there’s one last shifty step left in the inter­view process: Arwoeuf­gryo

By mov­ing each let­ter one to the right on a QWERTY key­board, the word “steprightup” is spelled.

This led to a new WhySoSe​ri​ous​.com page at the URL www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/​s​t​e​p​r​i​g​h​tup with a count­down to 12 p.m. EST on Dec. 4 along with a stuffed mon­key with an exposed stom­ach.