The Dark Knight 7-Minute Prequel Attached to I Am Legend IMAX Cut?
Here’s one way to guarantee people will see the upcoming film I Am Legend on the really big screen: according to a report from Portuguese site Omelete, the IMAX version of the upcoming Will Smith film will be prefaced with a special 7-minute prequel to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. The way I understand it, this would not be a trailer, but rather a short film that sets up the backstory for The Joker. It would be something that was shot separately as a standalone piece, and not created from footage that would turn up later in the finished film.
If the rumour is true, it would definitely help generate some extra interest in I Am Legend — not that I think it will really need the help. Why wouldn’t they save this for a movie that needs the exposure? Like, say… August Rush? Okay, maybe that’s a slightly different audience. Anyway, it seems like this is getting to be a new trend in movie marketing; only a few weeks ago Wes Anderson’s short film Hotel Chevalier was released online to help promote The Darjeeling Limited. I think it’s creative and in many ways preferable to being bombarded with trailers for a movie. Would you go out of your way to see I Am Legend on an IMAX screen just for 7 minutes of Batman? I suppose if you were going to see the movie anyway, you really can’t go wrong. I Am Legend will be released on December 14th.
Comments (7)
hell yes i would
Posted by mike on October 16th, 2007No IMAX where I Live or even very close. I suppose it’ll show up on i-tunes (like Anderson’s) a week or two after I am Legend is released. In some respect I like these shorts but in another it’s kind of annoying. Maybe I’m old school but I like the idea of keeping movies and all the contexutal information you need to fully enjoy and understand a given movie within the actual movie. All this stealth marketing dechiper the code on the website, etc. can be sort of annoying.
Posted by Ian on October 16th, 2007This is true, although I think in the case of the Wes Anderson short it wasn’t necessarily required viewing, it just added to the experience.
Posted by Sean on October 16th, 2007Yeah, I haven’t seen The Darjeeling Limited yet but I found the short to be kind of “student film pretentious”. It lacked the humor that Rushmore and The Royal Tennebaums have.
Posted by Ian on October 16th, 2007Definitely have no interset in I Am Legend and considering Imax movies are usually approx. $14 around here, I also definitely have no interest in paying $14 to see a 7 minute stand alone for the new Batman movie, as psyched as I am for the new movie in general.
Posted by Liz on October 17th, 2007I am looking forward to seeing both I Am Legend and The Dark Knight in theaters, but I will not be driving an hour from my home to see this on an IMAX screen. I’m sure the extra 7 minutes will be released and/or leaked online for viewing eventually, or if nothing else, I presume it will be on the DVD, so I can wait. I’m assuming that the footage in this 7 minute prequel won’t be necessary to understand the actual film when it is released, and if it is, then that’s just dumb. Convince people to see another movie any way you like, but if I have to see one movie in a specific theater to understand a completely different and unrelated one later, you’re doing something wrong.
Posted by Rian on October 18th, 2007Leave a Reply