TDK RISES NEWS

'TDKR' Operation 'Early' Bird Viral Unlocks Early Prologue Screenings

by Alex Billington
December 9, 2011

And here... we... go. As the time ran out on the Operation Early Bird site revealed just yesterday, instead of launching a viral game or any more clues, the site just simply forwarded to a map. Operation Early Bird, which was indeed way too on-the-nose with its name, is a "viral" site linked to The Dark Knight Rises revealed yesterday. The map shows numerous dots for cities where a screening is occurring on 10PM next Tuesday, December 13th, giving fans who could get to the site before it crashed an opportunity to see the new jaw-dropping, amazing, exhilarating six-minute prologue a whole three days before everyone else does.

If you visit the site at OperationEarlyBird.com now it'll auto-forwarded you to the map page, where you can see all of the locations and click on one of them to get tickets through Gofobo. Unfortunately, both the viral site and the Gofobo site crashed (and are still having problems) meaning most fans have stopped looking or given up. Additionally, many fans on twitter have replied saying it's just a map with the IMAX prologue theater locations anyway (and don't realize it's an early screening). As much hype as there is around this, Operation Early Bird was a considerable let down. Nothing happened, there were no games to play, it just unlocked a confusing map, the servers immediately crashed, and it left most fans nothing but frustrated.

I wish there was more to this viral to report on, but as far as we know, there isn't anything else. I would love to catch this prologue again at one of the fan screenings next Tuesday, but I couldn't even get to the Gofobo site myself, as it crashed, too, and hasn't been working since. This also doesn't help out any of the fans who don't even have a nearby IMAX theater showing the prologue, as they're only running this screening in all of the same theaters showing the prologue (only film-project IMAX). That said, if you want to catch this early and are in a city showing it, better hop that site on and reserve a ticket right away before they all sell out.

Finally, if you notice at the bottom of the map, there's two boxes to input coordinates and submit. Originally we thought this was to unlock each of the screening locations (but obviously not). However, the main TDKR website (TheDarkKnightRises.com) has updated with nothing but an audio clip containing distorted coordinates being spoken. While the Early Bird site isn't fully working yet, there might be some additional clues to be found once all of these are entered, but we'll have to keep trying and see what happens. Maybe they all mean nothing? For now, this is the latest with The Dark Knight Rises viral, we'll keep you updated!

Filed under Hype, Movie News, TDKR, Viral

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