Why I think we'll see the new KITT before opening night

[Michael Pajaro]

Probably the biggest question about the movie is "what will KITT look like?" We've become used to being "teased" with TV shows and movies, and there was the possibility that the studio would keep KITT a secret until the movie was released.

Variety has an article about the Hulk movie which talks about how Hollywood is starting to turn away from the idea of "secretive" marketing campaigns:

Columbia Pictures learned a valuable lesson when it stumbled with its campaign for "Godzilla," in which it held back any images of the title monster until the pic hit theaters. Bad buzz revolving around the redesigned creature caused potential viewers to stay home. By contrast, the studio ended up whetting the appetites of "Spider-Man" fans by releasing early shots of the superhero and settling any fears over the pic's production

Universal is now slowly releasing images of the Hulk, although they are still doing some teasing.

As a way to fire up the marketing machine to promote its big-budget summer tentpole "The Hulk," and to quash some early negative rumors surrounding the look of the pic's title character, [Universal] over the weekend revealed the first official image of the angry green meanie that is set to rampage the streets of San Francisco on June 20...With Internet buzz now seen as a factor in the success or failure of a pic's performance at the B.O., [Universal's] marketing gurus needed to do whatever they could to get geeks on their side.

I love the idea that they need geeks on their side... that's us!

I could see a similar campaign for Knight Rider. A year before the movie comes out, there could be a teaser showing maybe just the scanner. 6 months later, there could be a trailer with quick flashes of KITT. Then one month before it opens, we'd get some really good views of KITT.

These are just my opinions and speculations.

Mike

[Skav]

I believe you have only stated the obvious.

The world of the net hardly does a good job of concealing details does it?

I think we'll probably even see the car very early on in production...even a few weeks into filming.

The new Freddy v Jason movie has been in the can for over 10 years and now that it's finally being filmed, and has only just begun filming, lots of pictures are out for it if you look in the right places.

So hiding the car isn't exactly going to be too hard.

And plus, I'm not sure if the new movie will have the rep of, let's say Hulk, so maybe they won't even bother hiding the car in the first place.

Just my thoughts.

Skav

[jup]

Imagine what might have happened had NBC done such a thing with KIFT. (The tomato on wheels.) They might have actually LOST some viewership that week.

[Michael Pajaro]

I believe you have only stated the obvious.

The world of the net hardly does a good job of concealing details does it?

I'm not sure it's all that obvious... There were some Godzilla images floating around before the movie came out, but they were kind of hard to come by. And using the Hulk as an example: they've been working on the movie for a couple of years now... has anyone seen an actual final film image of what Hulk looks like? It's a losing battle, but studios can still do a semi decent job of keeping the lid on some things. Granted, it will be harder to hide filming a car racing around the streets of Los Angeles (or wherever) than a computer-generated superhero. In earlier threads we were talking about how cool it would be to go into the movie without knowing anything about it and just seeing everything new. The Variety article was suggesting that studios WANT us to know details to help generate buzz.

The Freddy/Jason argument is a different issue entirely... People may be looking for hints about the plot, but I don't think what Jason & Freddy look like is all that mysterious.

Mike

[Darknight]

I think that we will see flashes in trailers of KITT's new look long before the actual show hits theatres. Just guessing, but I'd say that they'll do a very brief thing about "for years they rode together" or something like that, showing flashes of the original KITT, then they'll have very quick, blurry images of something sleek and dark, with some red in it, while they read something(is it just me or do all movie previews seem to be done by the same guy?)about "now they're back together fighting crime once again" but I doubt that we'll see exactly what he looks like before opening night. Does anyone have any decent idea when production will start? If they don't start soon, it'll never reach theatres this year.

[knightimmortal]

At this rate, it probably won't anyway. The only thing Hasselhoff has said is that they are still ironing out the script. They have slated it for late 2003 or 2004.

KI

[Army_F_Body]

Depends on if GM's backing the new film or not I guess. Like the new GTO in xXx 2, if GM can create some stir about a new product you know darn well that we will be saturated by the new Kitt 2.0 as the release of the film draws near. I have a feeling that Kitt will be something we can't possibly imagine or guess. I'd like to go to the theatre and sit back and be totally blown away by the new car just like trekkies were in '79 when they caught the first shot of the constitution-refit Enterprise in the dry dock scene of ST:TMP .

[sarfraz]

(is it just me or do all movie previews seem to be done by the same guy?).

It isn't just you. I'm pretty sure it is just one guy (dude with the semi deep voice ).....come on, anyone know his name. He must earn quite abit of money considering how many trailers he does.

Sarfraz

[Michael Pajaro]

You can see what the guy looks like in a very clever trailer for "Comedian"

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/comedian.html

[IceKnight]

I have to agree with Mike here... I think the first things we'll see about the movie will only have the scanner on it. The first trailers will be the scanner, turning on out of pitch black, followed by the headlight flip up and KITT's turbine engine roaring to life .

As for posters, just the red scanner mid sweep with a trail, with the text, "They're Back" and the season/year of the release.

Later trailers should be a reflection of the history and perhaps a small lesson in how things got to where they are... 20 years ago, one man made a difference. 20 years later, nothing's changed... fast paced music, action scenes with explosions, the new KITT screaching to a stop mid screen. "Knight Rider 2.0" (read Kinght Rider, two point oh). In the guy's voice. "Because sometimes you just need to upgrade."

[IceKnight]

In fact, I just rigged up a flash movie based on an aprrox. 10 second trailer. Anyone wanting a look, maybe you could hook me up with some webspace.

IceKnight

[Michael Pajaro]

Is this like a 500k trailer, or a 10 Meg trailer?

Mike

[IceKnight]

the executable is just under 1 meg. the swf is 117k.
No idea how to set up streaming and all that stuff. people would have to download the file.

IceKnight

Its really basic though. Hope you're not expecting anything grand. Just something I whipped up in a half hour of time wasting.

[March2875]

I was thinking of this topic lastnight at work. (Looking for ways to pass time cause I hate working). I thought up a cool way to publize the new car yet not show a thing.

They can show footage of the original Kitt doing all his major capabilities and then have an announcer say and this was the 80's, just imagine what an updated car in the year 2004 can do? That way we are expecting something awesome and nothing is given away.

[jup]

Since everyone else is posting about how they think the trailer should go, here's what I see...

As the camera shot fades in, we only see dawn, rural landscape speeding by on a long road. A basic, one drum stick lightly hammers out the basic beat from the original theme, slowly. Also, there are some sketchy radio transmissions coming through that can't really be made out. The view point is speeding by like the camera was on a rocket car going full speed. After five seconds of this, the camera starts to pan out as the speed increases to something super insane. At the eight'th second, the edge of the new dash starts to appear at the bottom of the screen. The dash is practically still in comparison with the blur happening outside the window. (Now, here is where the scene splits.) (Split one:) The view point zooms just enough to see a hand press a button clearly marked SPM. A nose piece extends and the blur becomes nearly impossible to identify...anything but a road's surface. The whole theatre's sound system whines with the roar of a powerful engine. The view point fades out and is replaced by the words, "Knight Rider 2.0. Speeding to a theatre near you. month/date/year." Then, by the fourteenth second. The words cut away to an exterior view of the speeding KITT. The camera tries to keep up and pan, but only a black and red smear can be made out during the one second conclusion...along with more engine roar, using a doppler effect. (Split two:) A hand reaches out and presses a button marked Turbo Boost. The windshield viewpoint shoots off the road and directly into the sky, aiming at a big, night moon, while the turbine sound roars. The hood starts to glow red, then the moon's size explodes in under two seconds. The scene fades out, replaced by the words, "Knight Rider 2.0. Turbo boosting into a theatre near you. month/date/year/" while the audio grows deadly silent, then disturbed by a reworked version of the Eagle landing speech saying, "Houston. The Knight 2000 has landed." with beeps and crackle included. Then, the whole trailer concludes.