Jonathan Melville: Spoilers! Beware, the dark hype rises

Have you been living under a rock since last week, when The Guide gave a glowing review to The Dark Knight Rises?

Things move fast in pop culture. Batman was barely making his mark on cinema screens around the world when trailers for Man of Steel, with a release date of 14 June, 2013, started making their way online.

Buzz around blockbusters has always been hard to miss, with millions spent on advertising campaigns each summer to try to convince us to go and see one bloated sequel instead of another.

These days, with the growth of Twitter and Facebook, marketing teams are able to get discussions started earlier between fans, usually starting the hype well over 12 months before their film hits our screens.

The more we share these videos and photos, the further the hype spreads.

For me, constantly being fed details of spoilers, scandals and cast changes tends to dull the impact of a film.

There’s something in the old ‘less is more’ adage, with the odd teaser trailer and poster a few months before release usually enough to whet my appetite.

However, with The Dark Knight Rises breaking box office records in its opening weekend, clearly the PR people are doing something right.

From now on I’ll be filtering out mentions of Man of Steel on my Twitter feed and trying to find out as little as possible about the plot until I’m sitting in the cinema in 12 months time.

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@jon_melville

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