Production began in the spring of 2007 and while everyone has been tight-lipped about what specifically happened, it’s known that the crew traveled everywhere from Chicago to Hong Kong, scenes were shot with IMAX cameras (for the first time in a Hollywood production) and Ledger blew everyone away with his commanding and frightening performance. Other than that, little is known about the actual movie other than what has been shown in a lone trailer. However, while the studio has been careful about how much information they reveal through conventional means, they have launched a

The campaign started with the launch of two websites in May 2007 www.whysoserious.com and www.ibelieveinharveydent.com. “I Believe In Harvey Dent” hit the net first along with a now defunct site called www.ibelieveinharveytoo.com. When the second site was emailed between friends pixels began to disappear from the main image on the webpage. Eventually when all of these pixels were gone the site showed the first ever picture released of the new Joker. This image of Heath Ledger with hastily applied make-up and a mouth that had been sliced into a smile set the internet geeks into a frenzy and started a massive wave of hype for the movie.

Soon after, the “Why So Serious” site appeared and gave Batman fans attending the infamous San Diego ComiCon an ultimatum. They were to dress as the Joker and attend a certain room of the convention for further instructions. Once there, the fans uncovered the instructions for a scavenger hunt that eventually gave them the password necessary to unlock a new image of the Joker and the first Dark Knight trailer on the new website. In the following months new viral campaigns were launched on both sites. “Why So Serious” continued to announce scavenger hunts (including some that specifically targeted prominent film critics) that unlocked images and information about the movie, while “I Believe In Harvey Dent” turned into a fake news site that reveled information that occurred within the fictional world of the movie. Since Ledger’s untimely death, much of the Joker-focused marketing has disappeared in favour of the Harvey Dent campaign, which is unfortunate, but understandable.