So, I'm going with the hypothesis that TDKR marketing campaign will be very similar to that of TDK, just four years later.
TDK - May 19, 2007 - Joker picture released after enough people email
TDKR - May 20, 2011 - Bane picture released after enough people tweet
TDK - July 27, 2007 - Teaser premiers in theater with
The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox)
TDKR - July 15, 2011 - Teaser premiers in theaters with
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, pt 2 (WB)
TDK - Dec 14, 2007 - Theatrical trailer premiers in theaters with
I Am Legend (WB)
TDKR - ??? - Theatrical trailer premiers in theaters with ???
TDK - July 18, 2008 -
The Dark Knight opens, and sets the record for opening weekend box office.
TDKR - July 20, 2012 -
The Dark Knight Rises opens, and sets the record for opening weekend box office.
So, we can guess that the theatrical trailer will premiere within ±2 weeks of December 14th. Basically in December of this year. Here's the full list of those movies:
- Coriolanus
We Need to Talk About Kevin
New Year's Eve
The Sitter
Young Adult
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
The Iron Lady
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Adventures of Tintin
We Bought a Zoo
In the Land of Blood and Honey
The Darkest Hour
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
War Horse
This needs to be big, so we can remove all of those with limited releases. Now, lets look at target audience. I Am Legend, Harry Potter, and The Simpsons were all PG-13 movies. That's the demographic WB wants for The Dark Knight series; mature, but not old enough to limit their ability to make money. We don't know the ratings to these movies yet, but we can guess most of them based on other movies in the series, or the type of movie.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked - PG
The Adventures of Tintin - PG
New Year's Eve - PG-13
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - PG-13
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol - PG-13
The Darkest Hour - PG-13
War Horse - PG-13
The Sitter - PG-13/R
We Bought a Zoo - PG-13/R
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - R
Removing the PGs, Rs, and borderline cases gives us a pretty good list of possibilities. If we also remove
New Year's Eve, because the target audience for a crappy rom-com has virtually no overlap with the target audience for The Dark Knight Rises, we get only four possibilities.
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 12/16
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol - 12/21
The Darkest Hour - 12/25
War Horse - 12/28
Assuming that WB is going to want a huge audience to see the trailer, let's look at some stats: Facebook Index (according to
http://www.boxoffice.com ) and Trailer Views (according to
http://www.traileraddict.com).
- Movie - Facebook Index - Trailer Views
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 1,693,106 - 266,072
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol - 32,141 - 220,160
The Darkest Hour - 0 - 102,126
War Horse - 349 - 196,716
Looks like WB best choice is Sherlock Holmes 2, based on both measurements. Now, those stats won't
necessarily reflect total viewers by the time we get to December, but it's a pretty good guess that Sherlock Holmes 2 is going to be huge.
Note that we left out one of the most important criteria, which you can use as a shortcut. Warner Brothers only has two films coming out in December this year. One is an melodrama about 9/11 that's getting a limited release. The other is
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.