One of the more widely-praised festival hits from the past few years is director Adam Wingard’s horror film You’re Next.  Matt had very positive things to say about the pic in his review from the 2011 Toronto Film Festival, and now Lionsgate has finally slated the film for release later this year.  The story centers on a family reunion that turns deadly when the family becomes targeted by murderers sporting some incredibly creepy animal masks.  The studio released a fantastic first trailer for the pic last month, and it now looks like they’re taking their marketing campaign to the streets.  Hit the jump to see images of You’re Next‘s poster takeover.

One of my most-anticipated films of 2013 is Guillermo Del Toro‘s Pacific Rim.  We haven’t seen a new film from the acclaimed filmmaker in almost five years, so it’s long overdue.  Attendees at San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic-Con got a brief peek at the giant-monsters-versus-giant-robots movie Del Toro has planned, but it looks like Warner Bros. is getting ready to show the rest of the world what Pacific Rim has to offer.  A new viral video has been released that shows the emergency alert system for kaiju (giant monsters) attacks.  There’s also a copy of a letter from the Great Britain Air Command offering pilots to the jaeger (giant robots) program to help in defeating the kaiju.  Finally, and most importantly, the official website has a countdown clock for an event that will take place 14 days from now.  Del Toro has said in the past that we’ll see the first trailer in December.  It also just so happens that another Warner Bros. film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opens a little over two weeks from now.  Studios usually like to have their 3D movies have trailers for the studio’s other 3D movies.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film stars Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Ron Perlman.  Pacific Rim opens in 3D on July 12, 2013. [Update: A blueprint for the Jaeger has been released.  You can check it out after the jump.  Click here for new viral video of a kaiju attack on San Francisco.]

Director Rian Johnson told us in March that they were already planning the viral campaign for his September 28 movie, Looper.  The viral site has launched and invites you to become a Looper.  One catch:

There’s a stipulation in every Looper’s contract that he may someday be required to hunt down his future self, thus closing the contract, getting a huge pay-off and erasing any trace of the very illegal arrangement with his or her future employer.  This is called Closing Your Loop.  Cash out, get paid.  Live those 30 years like only a Looper can.

That doubles as the basic plot of Looper, in which Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is tasked with killing his future self (Bruce Willis) sent back in time from the future.  If you are prepared to take the risk, find out more after the jump.

I’m still a little surprised that the Prometheus viral campaign has continued even though the movie has come out.  However, there’s still a Blu-ray/DVD to sell, so now a new viral video has gone online.  The video is the worst recruitment video of all time, as a happy Weyland scientist tries to talk about her positive experiences with the company only to be interrupted by short clips from the Prometheus trailer.  However, if you can ignore the odd editing and still want to be part of the Prometheus experience, Weyland Industries will be recruiting at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.  I’m not sure what this “recruitment” will entail, but if they offer you a drink, don’t take it.

Hit the jump to check out the video.  The 2012 San Diego Comic-Con runs from July 12 – 15th. Here are some tips if you’re a first-time attendee.

A couple days ago we brought you a new piece of The Dark Knight Rises viral goodness by showing you the Mayor of Gotham’s signing of the Dent Act, which brings stronger penalties against the city’s criminals.  Now an issue of Gotham’s paper-of-record, The Gotham Observer, is reporting on festivities for “Harvey Dent Day”, a slew of burglaries across the city (*cough*Catwoman*cough*), Zach Harris re-singing with the Gotham Rogues football team (he’s no Hines Ward), the ransacking of construction sites, and ad for the tech company, Rykin Data.  Go to the website, and you’ll see that it’s under construction, but there’s an extract from a patent for an algorithm that can wipe away your entire digital footprint.  Not a bad program for someone looking to disappear.

Hit the jump to check out the pages of the Gotham Observer.  The film stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Morgan Freeman.  The Dark Knight Rises opens July 20th.

It’s been a while since The Dark Knight Rises viral campaign asked anything of the legions of Batman fans.  The viral campaign for The Dark Knight set a high watermark in what a viral campaign could do, but Rises has been fairly quiet ever since fans were told where they could go to see the first six minutes of the movie in IMAX.  But now the viral is back on, and it’s allowing fans to try and unmask the next trailer before it debuts with The Avengers this Friday.

Hit the jump for more.  The film also stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine.  The Dark Knight Rises opens July 20th.

The viral campaign for Marc Webb‘s The Amazing Spider-Man continues onward.  The previous viral website, “Mark of the Spider-Man”, recently posted a fake news segment of NYPD Captain Stacy (Denis Leary) speaking to Daily Bugle TV.  Sadly, Daily Bugle Editor-in-Chief J. Jonah Jameson isn’t in the reboot, but Stacy preaches from the same book when he says, “What kind of hero wears a mask?”  The video has Stacy telling viewers a hotline they can call if they see Spider-Man.  The number is 877-651-8503, but it will just tell you to go to the website webbedmenace.com, which is where people can go and upload pictures of Spider-Man.

Hit the jump to check out the fake news segment and click here to check out Steve’s interview with Webb at WonderCon yesterday.   The film also stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, and Rhys Ifans.  The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D on July 3rd.

Last week, the viral campaign for Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus began with a TED Talk from the future given by Weyland Industries CEO, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce).  This led to the Weyland Industries website, and now the website has yielded an amazing image.  The high-resolution image shows the star map room glimpsed in the teaser trailer.  It doesn’t really offer up any clues about the film’s plot (at least not that I can see), but the image would make for an awfully pretty desktop wallpaper.

Hit the jump to check out the stunning image.  The film also stars Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba, and Michael Fassbender.  Prometheus opens in 3D on June 8th.

As we continue towards the release of The Dark Knight Rises, the film’s viral campaign soldiers onward.  After letting fans know where they could go to see the six-minute prologue (answer: anywhere but Georgia), various websites have received a cylinder with a map on it with a Bane t-shirt inside the cylinder.  When I first saw the t-shirt, I cracked up.  Apparently, Bane’s goals are to take over Gotham, bring down Batman, and make some money from CafePress on the side.  The map of Gotham City is more interesting.  It contains five “strike zones”, but this isn’t a real-world Alternate Reality Game hunt since—and I hate to be the one to tell you this—Gotham City is fictional.

Hit the jump to check out the shirt and the cylinder map.  The Dark Knight Rises opens July 20, 2012.  The six-minute prologue will be attached to some IMAX screenings of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol tomorrow.

UPDATE: We’ve been sent the t-shirt and map. We’ve added 17 high resolution photos.

As The Dark Knight Rises revved up their viral campaign earlier this week , it overshadowed other movies in the midst of their own marketing. The Dark Knight Rises’ “Operation Early Bird” granted early access to the prologue for people close to specified IMAX theaters and a new trailer is expected to drop on Monday. However, there are other properties that are vying for your attention and your dollars, such as Men in Black 3, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Darkest Hour and The Hunger Games. Hit the jump for an update on each of these unique campaigns.

After The Dark Knight launched its viral “Why So Serious?” campaign way back in 2007, the movie obviously went on to be a smash. How much of that was due in part to alternative marketing is up for debate, but with The Dark Knight Rises just around the corner, it’s no surprise that we might be seeing the beginning of another viral run-up. Recently, The Wrap (via Movie Viral) interviewed Jeff Robinov, the President of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures, who said that the “marketing strategy will definitely evolve” from the previous Batman installment.

Hot on the heels of that quote, Empire and Wired (via Movie Viral) received two separate “CIA documents” concerning a Dr. Leonid Pavel. While that name doesn’t yet ring a bell, readers over at ComingSoon connected Pavel’s mugshot to that of actor Alon Aboutboul, who has a role in The Dark Knight Rises. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but hit the jump to check the documents out just the same. [Update: A new document has been added along with a link to a countdown timer ; you can check them out after the jump.]

With director Shawn Levy’s Real Steel hitting theaters later this year, it was only a matter of time before a viral campaign surfaced for the big-budget sci-fi flick. Today, the campaign kicked into high gear with the first website, WRB.com, going live. Starring Hugh Jackman, the action-drama takes place in the near future, where human boxers have been replaced by robots. Jackman’s character, a washed-up fighter who lost his job once the more entertaining robots took over, decides to team up with his son to build themselves a championship fighter from scratch and train him to go all the way. Real Steel hits theaters on October 7^th of this year. Hit the jump to get the rundown on the viral marketing campaign.

[Update 1: It looks like "Round 1" has been unlocked on the site. Visitors are given an introduction to the Koma Club, "The Birthplace of Robot Boxing", as well as bios on the men responsible for bringing robot boxing to the masses. It appears that this campaign is going to give us some backstory on how the whole robot boxing thing came to be, in the world of Real Steel. Head over to WRB.com to check it out.]

[Update 2: Steve here. I checked WRB.com and noticed at the top of round 1 there was a nine digit code (a1b34cd23) and when I entered it, round 2 opened up.  Each round has the code at the top so as you watch and learn about the history of the WRB – which is really well done – you get the next code.  When you get to rounds 4 and 5 you get new footage from the movie including our first look at Zeus.   I screengrabbed a number of images and they’re after the jump:

Forget red and blue pills; the clear pill is the last drug you’ll ever need! At least that’s what Bradley Cooper promises in his new promo for Limitless. The ad looks remarkably like the all-too-common pharmaceutical commercials on TV, but it’s actually part of a recently launched viral marketing campaign for the upcoming film.

The picture — directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist) — is an adaptation of Alan Glynn’s novel, The Dark Fields, which focuses on Eddie Morra (Cooper), a writer who stumbles upon a performance-enhancing drug. The drug, known as NZT, allows Morra to “access 100% of his brain, learn new languages and conquer Wall Street.” All’s well until the downside of the drug starts to affect him, with side effects such as “paralysis, psychosis, brain damage and sudden death.”

Limitless also stars Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish (Bright Star) and Anna Friel (Land of the Lost), with a screenplay written by Leslie Dixon (The Thomas Crown Affair). Hit the jump to view the viral promo and unlock your full potential.

Prizes have begun arriving for those who completed the TRON: Legacy “Flynn Lives” Arcade Aid game.  As we reported in mid-October, the “Arcade Aid” website (caution: it’s loud) had been updated again and players were challenged to name the 167 games hinted at in the puzzle.  I was able to do so and now the prizes have arrived in the mail: two “Arcade Aid” pins (one featuring the TRON light cycle and another featuring the clue for Face Off) as well as a limited edition poster featuring the entire Arcade Aid puzzle.  I received a note with the poster (which measures 36″x19.5″) saying that it only went to the first 999 people to solve the puzzle.  The note also hints that the viral campaign ain’t over yet.

Hit the jump to check out images of these cool prizes.  TRON: Legacy stars Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Jeff Bridges.  It opens in 3D on December 17th.

As part of the viral campaign for this summer’s Inception, the sci-fi mindbender directed by Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros. has sent out a manual for “Dream-Share” employees.  Though it’s covered in black ink to hide content that’s too top secret for those outside the inner circle, the handbook is separated into the following chapters:

• Specialists/Operatives
• Environment Creation
• The Dream/Waking World Relationship
• The Hostile Subconscious
• Warfare in the Dream
• Interrogation Techniques

I like the pretty pictures, but it’s all way over my head.  If you want to attempt to parse out some details for yourself, you can find scans of the manual after the jump.