In my inbox the other day, I received what was said to be the latest promotional poster for the Dark Knight movie. In case you live under a rock, the Dark Knight is the next installment in the Batman saga. It will star Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker. It is currently scheduled for a July 2008 release.

I open the image, and it looks awesome. Enough to get me excited, it hinted at the sort of cinematic Viagra 300 had promised. I'm pretty sure that geeks worldwide would have already received the same email, but just in case you missed it, or it got stuck in your spam filter, here is the poster I'm talking about...

Impressive, no? It has all the shock and awe that a good movie poster should. I guess that's why I assumed that it was the real official deal, and I'm sure that there are a lot of people out there that would have agreed with me. It was only after the shock and awe wore off that I looked at it more closely. It was the fine print that finely gave it away...

Notice anything wrong? Granted it is hard to read, but if my dodgy eyes can make it out, then yours should too! All the credits refer to Batman Begins. Whoever has knocked this together has done a freakin good job, but in the end they've cut and pasted the credits from the Batman Begins poster.

So it's a fake, do I care? Heck no! I'm still more excited than a 90 year old man that's just swallowed a handful of viagra!!Perhaps this is all part of the Dark Knight viral marketing campaign? Word on the street is that is the approach the studio is taking in terms of promoting the film. Check out http://www.whysoserious.com for a glimpse of what I'm referring to.

Here's some of the viral stuff I'm talking about...

Here's an image from the film, with Heath Ledger as the Joker, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes. Seems Katie Holmes didn't want to return for the gig now that she's gone and got all freaky with Tom Cruise.

I have to say that I prefer Maggie Gyllenhaal anyway...