[show=twentytwelve size=large]Warning: The below post contains spoilers for the upcoming Roland Emmerich-directed film “2012,” starring John Cusack, Thandie Newton and Danny Glover. Trust me, you’re not missing much.
Back in the winter of 2008, I had more than a few good reasons to be excited for 2012, due out on Nov. 13: I’ve got a soft spot for both John Cusack and the apocalypse, the teaser trailer gave me chills, and Emmerich films are a guilty pleasure. Also, I liked what was then the very beginning of a viral campaign to promote the film, focusing around the Institute for Human Continuity, a fictional organization created to choose via lottery who survives the Mayan-predicted end times — it reminded me of the revolutionary ARG known as The Beast, which created a fascinating interactive prequel to Steven Spielberg’s A.I. in 2001.
Over the past six months, the viral marketing folk at Sony (s sne) have expanded the online world of the film, adding more content to the IHC and launching two additional sites (This Is the End and Farewell Atlantis, the latter promoting a novel written by John Cusack’s nice-guy-just-trying-to-save-his-kids character). They’ve also been making heavy use of YouTube to release videos.
The IHC YouTube channel is posting video responses to questions asked on webcams by “vloggers” — the vloggers are plants, but some effort was put into creating fake YouTube accounts for them. And one of them looks more than a little familiar — that’s right, kids, it’s Woody from Cheers! Read More about Disaster Film 2012’s Viral Marketing Campaign Is Also a Disaster