Quite simply, when you see The Dark Knight, you’re going to realize how truly awful the first wave of Batman films were.

Viral marketing of old served as just a clever ploy to start marketing a film, but few people really took notice. The Dark Knight marketing got people involved. Granted, the people that got involved were probably those who were going to see the movie opening weekend anyway, but MY GOD was it fun.

As promised, we’ve rounded up all of the images that we can find (legally) from The Dark Knight.

If you’re anything like me then you are counting down the hours until The Dark Knight is released. Well, it looks like the Joker has the film on his mind too. He laid waste to all the promotional items that Warner Bros. has put out for the most anticipated movie of the year.

Our illustrious Executive Editor Neil Miller has said this film “will pretty much make a billion dollars on opening weekend.” Is that possible?

As part of our ongoing coverage of the mass media hysteria that is The Dark Knight, please enjoy these two behind the scenes looks at possibly the biggest film of 2008.

No other superhero has changed faces or directions more, for better or worse, than the Caped Crusader. Batman’s long strange trip through film is a tale of success, followed by a hellacious fall. But as Alfred would remind us, “Why do we fall,sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

The year’s most anticipated summer film is still weeks away, but that doesn’t mean we can’t give you a first-hand account of its brilliance. Yeah, that’s right — we said brilliance. Behold, the epic spectacle that is The Dark Knight.

One look through his filmography and any ardent fan of film can see it — Christopher Nolan knows how to make a very original, engaging drama. But with The Dark Knight he took on a new challenge — making a sequel that raised the bar and would satisfy Batman’s millions of fans.

Fans like to go to midnight showings of a big film. It’s exciting, a way to be one of the first to see a special movie, like The Dark Knight. But unless you already have your ticket to that midnight show you might be seeing The Dark Knight in the light of early morning.

I suppose that it is becoming obvious that this film, this Batman sequel The Dark Knight is coming out soon — it would have to be, seeing as the web is all abuzz with Dark Knight this and Dark Knight that.

An early whispering campaign has already begun in Hollywood for a posthumous Oscar to be awarded to Heath Ledger for his brilliant performance of the villainous Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

It isn’t even July 1 yet and all the web can seem to talk about is The Dark Knight. And now, thanks to some statistics from the world of online movie ticket sales, it is time to start questioning whether that interest might just turn into box office records.

There’s a scene in The Dark Knight where star Christian Bale stands on a ledge on top of the Sears Tower. Is it real or is it CGI? It’s real; the way director Christopher Nolan likes it and the way he believes an audience should see it.

“Yeah, it’s the most fun I’ve had, playing a role.” said the late Heath Ledger in an interview with FHM Online while the actor was on location in Chicago during the filming of The Dark Knight in 2007.

Something tells me the Joker’s line “I love this job” will be a big catch phrase this summer. I imagine office workers bound to their desks, trapped in their cubicles saying it with the Joker’s sneering inflection as they toil through stacks of paper and fight the boredom of the desk job.

No one who knows the character of the Joker in Batman will deny that he’s rotten to the core. But who knew he was based on a punk rock icon in his latest film incarnation?

I took one look at it and I said “Oh my god, I need this!” You can expect it in stores in August, which will probably be the month you have to go on welfare after all the awesome Dark Knight collectibles hit stores.

At this point it is safe to say that there is nothing that could possibly get us more excited for the July 18th release of The Dark Knight. Then again, we can’t blame WB for trying…

Warner Bros. has debuted a brand new TV spot for The Dark Knight, the third of its kind in the past week.