Brilliant PR or Death of Heath Ledger? You Decide.

Last week, I turned in a PR case study to my professor and we began to discuss this in class. He did not accept my study and shot it down quickly before a real discussion could occur which leads to this question, "What made The Dark Knight so successful?" Was it a brilliant PR campaign, the death of Heath Ledger, or both?

I will present my case with two viral videos for you to watch and you decide.

[D]uring the years 2007 to 2008, before the release of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan launched a worldwide marketing campaign for the film. This campaign started off with a black screen website of nothing but when you took the pointer and highlighted the screen, you can see 'HA ha hA hA' covering the whole page.

The website then progressed to games and clues, engaging a nation wide man hunt to solve the riddles of the Joker. Different results occurred revealing scenes of The Dark Knight film while showing graffiti left by the Joker. This marketing campaign also recruited people to dress like the crazy clown.

Along side of the Joker campaign, an 'I Believe In Harvey Dent' van took to the streets of America. Websites followed, promoting Harvey Dent and identical sites arose with the Joker defacing them. Sites for the Gotham City Police Department showed up with numbers to contact and police defacing the Dark Knight.

I took part in some activities while living in LA and this campaign created quite the PR stir. There were over 10 million participants from 75 countries throughout the world. As a result, The Dark Knight broke box office records with the most pre-advanced tickets sold, 'opening night, morning, midnight, 3am and 6am showings sold out.'

My Public Relations professor shot this down quickly and gave the success of the film to the death of Heath Ledger who played The Joker.  Another student tried to give credit to the PR campaign but he was shot down quickly with a repeated phrase, "it was the death of Ledger."





So what made The Dark Knight so successful? Was it the brilliant PR campaign, the death of Heath Ledger, or both?

The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman & Bane

(UPDATE: Photo of Tom Hardy as Bane. Go to the-suit.com to get up to date information on The Dark Knight Rises plus more.)

The cat is out of the bag and Christopher Nolan reveals a little more about his third installment of the caped crusader, “The Dark Knight Rises.”

E! News released an article today that Nolan finally made his pick of actors and that Anne Hathaway will be playing Selina Kyle, Catwoman, a love interests to follow the death of Rachel Dawes.

Christopher Nolan states, “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Anne Hathaway, who will be a fantastic addition to our ensemble as we complete our story.”

Nolan also made the long awaited reveal that Tom Hardy will play Bane, a muscle intellect.

The Dark Knight will be released in mid-summer of 2012. Filming set to begin this spring.

 (Disclaimer:  The movie poster is fan made and it looks fantastic!)