By Kofi Outlaw

Pictures of the first promotional poster for BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT hit the web this week. As you can see below, the poster is a clever little riff on the characters of the Joker (Heath Ledger) and Batman (Christian Bale), featuring a lipstick-red bat insignia which, (taken with the two dark circles drawn above it,) forms a crooked smiley-face, reminiscent of the Joker’s clown makeup. The “Why So Serious?” motif, which is also the domain name of KNIGHT’S viral marketing site, appears scrawled across the head of the poster.

More exciting however, was an event that took place this week in NYC, where DARK KNIGHT director Christopher Nolan allowed some very select members of the press to view an extended trailer of the film shot in IMAX, which will premiere to the general public on Dec. 14, as the lead-in to the IMAX print of I AM LEGEND, starring Will Smith.

MTV news reports that the six-minute clip covered DARK KNIGHT’S opening sequence, in which a gang of criminals, donned in clown masks, storm a Gotham City bank. A bank employee (PRISON BREAK’S William Fichtner) informs the crooks that the bank is mob-owned, and therefore protected. The crooks don’t care who owns the place, and begin loading cash, until a mysterious figure begins taking them out one by one. The last crook, sensing something amiss, pulls his gun on his partner, claiming to know that the Joker had given instruction for no man to make it out alive. The masked partner stares, quietly stating that no, the Joker killed the bus driver. The gunman looks confused for all of second before a school bus rams through the wall and runs him down. The last crook standing removes his mask, revealing the Joker himself. He hops on the bus with the cash and makes a clean getaway.


You can read a more detailed (and first hand) synopsis of the DARK KNIGHT extended trailer here, or you can wait until Dec. 14, pay twenty bucks, and go see the I AM LEGEND in IMAX. For now, take a look at the teaser poster (and a pic from the extended trailer) and rant back to us if Warner Bros has successfully hooked you into seeing LEGEND in IMAX, just to get a taste of DARK KNIGHT to hold you over until June.