MovieViral reader TheArc321 points us to a YouTube page that could be part of the viral campaign for The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s third entry into the new Batman film series. The YouTube channel also points us to a Facebook page, but is any of this in-game or just fan made?
The YouTube channel is titled TheFireRises, which is a reference to the chant heard on the official TDKR website, which was discovered almost two weeks ago. The channel has three grainy videos that are a bit hard to make out. The videos were released on consecutive days between May 28th and May 30th. The first video, titled “419.”, shows fires raging all over a city (presumably Gotham).
The second video, “Outbreak”, shows hooded prisoners being mistreated and lined up, then the view from a car driving in a tunnel.
The third and final video might be the most interesting. Titled “GCN.”, the video has broken up audio and video from Gotham City News, including a breaking story titled “Arkham Breakout?”. Since the video also includes images of the fire, it’s safe to assume that the Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane has another breakout, and it probably has something to do with Bane, on the of the villains featured in the film, played by Tom Hardy.
You may also notice a link flashing on the screen around the 0:13 mark. It’s a Facebook page also titled The Fire Rises. I’m not sure why fire is so important to this campaign and film, but maybe Batman enthusiasts have a better idea. The only post on the page from the admins has been a image of actor Matthew Modine as a politician named Nixon, who is supposedly going to become a villain himself.
Of course, we have to wonder whether any of this is actually from Warner Bros or 42 Entertainment, who is presumed to be doing the campaign after their wildly successful work with The Dark Knight. Since Anthony Michael Hall is in the GCN footage, either the makers of the video pulled from the previous campaign, where Hall also played a news anchor, or this is official. What do you all think? Are there any signs that this is fake?
UPDATE
I’ve seen a lot of comments and blogs saying this is all fake, though no definitive proof has been provided. I was skeptical from the moment I started looking into it, and now I’m 95% sure it is fake.