“The Dark Knight” was
a highly anticipated film in the Batman franchise as it was the first Batman
movie to not have the name “Batman” in the title which makes clear to the
audience and the fan base that the film will not take on the comical cheesy
take that the TV series did in the 1960’s when Adam West would dance around as
Batman, and would take a more serious and dark role even more so than “Batman
Begins”. Also over the years batman has evolved from being a TV show for batman
fans to have a good laugh about, to Tim Burton in 1989 taking a more serious
look at the super hero and now for Christopher Nolan completely giving Batman a
face lift in 2005 to a dark and evil state of Gotham city which has almost a
real feel to everything in Gotham city from the reality of crime to villains
within the film. The expectation of the new Joker was all kept very quite from
fans as the first picture of The Joker was only to be released by going along
with a very interesting viral marketing campaign, firstly a website showed up
on the internet called “IBelieveInHarveyDent.com” then a little while later
another website popped up on the internet as well called
“IBelieveInHarveyDentToo.com” which had an email submission that would gain you
access to on pixel of the picture of the new joker one this had been done the
first picture of the joker was released to the public. By the picture that was released we can tell
instantly that the film is heading into even darker territories than it has
ever been before.
Due to the Batman franchise being
given a new identity with its darker feel and evil plots it is attracting
different types of audiences that would not generally watch super hero films
before as the film was portrayed in posters as almost a horror/thriller film as
the batman logo wasn’t all shiny black and yellow it was engulfed in flames or
spray painted onto a building which also gave the film an urban edge to it.
Another poster that gave it its horror/thriller feel was one of the Joker
behind a smoked window with him writing “why so serious?” and his smile in
blood. The smoked out window gave the joker an unrecognizable face, which makes
his character unknown and mysterious, the make up the Joker wears in “The Dark
Knight” could be interpreted as clown makeup, clowns are usually associated
with laughter and happiness so this make the audience take a new look at
clowns.
Christopher
Nolan’s Batman Begins was very successful amongst Batman fans compared to the
1997 flop Batman and Robin which was considered one of the worst batman films
of all time with a 3.6/10 on IMDB and only 12% on rotten tomatoes. So The Dark
Knight had a lot to prove that it would continue the good feedback that
Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins had received from fans and new comers to the
batman franchise, the new way that batman is being portrayed is as a dark shady
character and not a bold bright coloured super hero.
Before
films are release for cinema they usually have test screenings where other directors
and fans get invited to come and view the film so they can give feedback to the
director of the film and if anything needs to be revisited they can change it
before it is released to cinemas. The Dark Knight did not have a test screening
as most major film companies usually know if the film is going to sell in a
certain way so they did not test screen. This is not the only reason they did
not test screen the other reasons are that Batman Begins had been released 3
years Prior and that turned out to be a huge success and had been rated a
8.3/10 on IMDB by over 2,500 reviewers. Also another reason for them not test
screening is because they wanted to keep The Jokers identity secret from
everyone until the films marketing campaign had been released. As well as test
screenings directors get feedback after the film has been released which is
what Christopher Nolan had to do as they did not test screen at all, so once
the film had been released cinema sales and movie reviews on the internet and
in newspapers were the only ways they could judge some sort of feedback, by the
box office sales they could instantly see that fans and general viewers were
loving the film, with it making just under an impressive £200 million in its
first opening weekend. Reviews that are posted online are very important to a
films reputation as if a film gets a bad review from cinema release then the
DVD and blu-ray sales will not be as great, were as if the film got a great
review post DVD and blu-ray release then the sales figures will go up a
substantial amount. Also with the dark knight being the second film in a
trilogy as the first film batman begins got good reviews and the dark knight
being directed by Christopher Nolan as well the viewers will expect great
things from the next film and are more likely to go and see it as they have
been told about the previous film or have seen reviews online. But reviews and
word of mouth can effect a films reputation as I found out with another batman
film called batman and robin, I have been told it is an appalling film so it
has put me off watching it and if someone was to ask if I had seen I would say
no but I have heard so many bad things about it, then they would probably do
the same.
During the
time the dark knight was out at the cinema they had many merchandise campaigns
out including the dark whopper at burger king, which helped burger king sell
more burgers, as it was a special edition burger that had different sauce than
a normal whopper also it would help promote the film as burger king is ranked
no.3 in the fast food ranks so a lot f people are going to see this special
product and the film on the packaging. Once the film had been released on DVD
and Blu-ray loads of merchandise started to appear including clothing, gaming
and children’s lunch equipment (but had a more childish twist on the
characters). I think bring out merchandise for children is a good move by
warner brothers and dc comics as they can then make side series cartoon of make
new TV series of batman for children. In class we made our own personally
designed pieces of merchandise. The Dark Knight was released on DVD and Blu-ray
the two most popular formats of distribution amongst the professional industry,
The Dark Knight has sold over 3 million
copies worldwide which shows that it made a massive impact on our culture, we
know this because it has gone down as one of the best films of our time with heath ledgers
performance being the best joker performance ever and after his death just
before the film was due to be released he was named as one of Australia’s
finest actors ever produced.The Dark
Knight followed the normal way a film is released it came in cinema before the
dvd was released 6 months later, a game was released in 2009 a year after the
dvd release which was injected into the fans as a stimulus to keep them interested
into the series as another game was to come out before the next film was going
to be released.
The Dark Knight had a website before the film was released that had all the information about a fake gotham city in a website which recorded everything that had happened in gotham since batman begins and there were lots of teasers about the joker on the website which included photos in newspapers whit the black eyes and trademark red lipstick located were the mouth would be on the photo, also another interactive marketing tool that the dark knight was a massive hunt around new york for items that could be found that were clues for the identity of the new joker and how his character was going to be played. The last interactive marketing campaign they released before the film was a news paper that was named the Gotham Times and was sold on the streets of new york to the public with stories that side lined in the new film and ones form batman begins that linked with the dark knight. Writing this essay has shown me the ways that big name
company distribute and promote there
films. Also it defines how important getting your product a marketing gap that
no one else has done before to get noticed.
