WhySoSerious Jack-o-Lantern taking on some interesting looks

Posted by Chris

October 29, 2007

Many have noted that the Jack-o-Lantern that appears on WhySoSerious, a site that’s part of the campaign for The Dark Knight, has changed since it first appeared. For one thing, the candle inside the pumpkin has been melting down, with some speculating it’s counting down to Halloween and some sort of big reveal.

Then it began rotting, but, as HollywoodChicago notes, it’s only rotting on one side. There are multiple things going on here:

For one, the design of the pumpkin has been rightly tagged as resembling that on the cover of the Batman comic mini-series and trade paperback “The Long Halloween.” That story heavily involves a pre-Two Face Harvey Dent, and the fact that the pumpkin is only becoming disfigured on one side is, again, indicative of a Two Face connection.

We know that Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, appears in the movie. I don’t think anyone’s speculating that the movie will actually follow the Long Halloween story, about a serial killer taking out corrupt officials and crime bosses but only on holidays. But putting all this together does tell me that Warner Bros. is going out of their way to get comics fans excited about the movie by referencing good stories from the books. That’s huge, and not something every studio behind a comics adaptation has done effectively, or without veering into pandering.