This is so cool. Guillermo del Toro‘s Kaiju v. Jaegers (sea monsters vs. giant robots, for the uninitiated) movie Pacific Rim won’t be out until next summer, but happily for those of us waiting for news, today marked the unleashing of some very cool viral marketing to get us in the mood.
First, we have secured this top secret memo from our friends at Total Film, addressed from the Marshal of the Great Britain Air Command to a lieutenant colonel with the PPDC (Pan Pacific Defense Corps) High Command(!) in response to the “tragic Trespasser event”(!!) and the now-global threat(!!!) posed by the Kaiju(!!!!):
This alert is something with which we apparently must all become accustomed:
Test of the Kaiju Emergency Alert System
[youtube]http://youtu.be/d9PFtl2tt9E[/youtube]
Whew, only a test! BUT WAIT!
BREAKING NEWS: KAIJU ATTACK
[youtube]http://youtu.be/mS6kk1bTqJs[/youtube]
And wait, there’s more! French site Alloncine has obtained this memo – if my rusty high school French is anywhere near accurate, this company is helping to build Jaegers!
And we’re not done yet! Wired has actually secured a blueprint of one of them:
Finally, a website has been opened that looks to be tracking Kaiju attacks, and there’s a countdown clock to December 12. Hmm, December 12. Hey, isn’t that two days before Pacific Rim‘s Legendary/Warner Bros. sibling The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey premieres? And aren’t we getting previews of Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel before the feature begins? Hmmm… Now how glad are we that we have already secured tickets to both the IMAX and non-IMAX presentations of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey?
We love viral marketing. Yes, of course all of the fun things above are part of the viral marketing plan, and are now also a part of our rich fantasy lives, where we enjoy spending a great deal of time.
Here’s your reminder of what Pacific Rim is all about:
Synopsis:
When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind’s last hope against the mounting apocalypse.
Click here for our Comic-Con from-the-floor reporting of the Pacific Rim panel, including more insights from del Toro about the movie, and a description of the Comic-Con-attendees-only trailer. With any luck, we’ll be seeing that and maybe more before we take that trip to Bag End, because as a Pacific Rim panel attendee, I can tell you that trailer was awesome.
Pacific Rim directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Ron Perlman, Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Clifton Collins Jr., Max Martini, Rinko Kikuchi and Diego Klattenhoff is slated to hit theaters on July 12th, 2013.
