Many can debate that modern alien invasion films can’t hold a candle to classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds, but one thing that we have today that sets us apart is viral marketing. That’s exactly what’s starting up for the upcoming “military vs. alien” film Battle: Los Angeles.

Over the weekend, a 4 second long YouTube video was released, showing a brigade of alien spacecrafts hovering over the 110 freeway. If submitting a 4 second video to YouTube and getting upwards of 100,000 views in less than a week isn’t considered viral, then we don’t know what is.

For those who want to stay in touch with all things Battle: Los Angeles, they can report to the fictional site that allows citizens to report alien threats at reportthreats.com, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

Check out the mysterious viral video after the jump. Battle: Los Angeles is set to hit theaters on March 11th.

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Horror director Darren Lynn Bousman is already having a pretty busy year. This is the first year since 2005 in which we won’t be getting another Saw film, of which he directed 3. More and more steam is being picked up for his upcoming remake of Mother’s Day, and now we’re getting a brand new trailer for yet another one of his films expected to hit theaters this year.

Introducing 11/11/11, a film that can only really be made once, and Bousman is snatching up that opportunity. Here’s a brief synopsis.

A horror-thriller set on 11:11 on the 11th day of the 11th month and concerning a entity from another world that enters the earthly realm through Heaven’s 11th gate.

With a premise like this, and a title that screams “viral”, you can expect promotion for the film to start popping up just about everywhere. The very first trailer has hit the web, so we’re finally getting a peek at what we can expect. If you really need to know the release date of the film, you probably don’t deserve to see it. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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While Skyline may not have turned too many heads in theaters last month, Sony is hoping that won’t effect the turnout for their big alien invasion film set to hit theaters next year: Battle: Los Angeles.

The last trailer we got gave us a bit more of the titular Battle, but this new trailer to hit the web now gives us history of this world where aliens have been invading for years. Here’s the synopsis.

For years, there have been documented cases of UFO sightings around the world – Buenos Aires, Seoul, France, Germany, China. But in 2011, what were once just sightings will become a terrifying reality when Earth is attacked by unknown forces. As people everywhere watch the world’s great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. It’s up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered.

Not only does this new spot show us more, but it spills the beans in a possible franchising plan by calling this film World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles. Does this mean we could get more Battles after this one? We’ll have to see how LA fairs against the extra terrestrials on March 11th.

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Slowly but surely, Jim Henson’s legacy is growing bigger and bigger in the public eye, all thanks to the power of viral videos. The Muppets have pulled in millions of views and awards with their antics and music videos, while Sesame Street is still going strong on PBS with some impressive guest stars like Ryan Reynolds and Terrence Howard. It seems like one neighborhood monster in particular is aiming for the stars, as Cookie Monster has publicly put out an audition to host SNL.

The video is proof that the brilliant minds behind Sesame Street aren’t just making mindless children’s entertainment, as Cookie Monster refers to himself as a glutton and spoofs things like MacGruber, Lady GaGa, and the format of SNL itself. There is even an official Facebook campaign to make this happen. That’s right, this is real.

Not many remember this, but Henson’s Muppets and Lorne Michael’s SNL have a history dating back to the first season of SNL, when the Muppets got their very first time in the spotlight on the show once a week. So before you write the idea off as being another gimicky hosting trend, it could very well happen.

Check out the audition after the jump, and by all means, help Cookie Monster host SNL!

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Some could say that one of the best elements of 2008′s Cloverfield was the immense viral marketing and alternate reality games that lead up to the film’s release. It seems that the same marketing team behind that film is at it again for J.J. Abram’s upcoming sci-fi thriller Super 8.

The film’s plot is shrouded in a good amount of mystery, but what we’ve gleaned is that the story follows two young men who capture something they weren’t meant to see on a super 8 home video camera, which leads to all kinds of chaos.

A few months back, an ARG popped up site that seems to be made for the film over at www.scariestthingieversaw.com. Once clicked on, the site becomes a vintage code screen that takes you to a dead end after about 5 minutes of execution lines. There are tons of different commands that take you to several puzzling files, but overall the site was done as a major viral marketing plan.

One of the cool things at the viral site is if you enter the command .PRINT SCOM8. Two sheets are sent to your printer of a vintage newspaper with an ad for The Rocket Poppeteeers. If you signed up, you’d get a letter welcoming you as a new member of the Poppeteer Astronaut Program.

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Now that Inception is far behind us, there’s one more film slated for release this year that we can’t wait to see. Of course, that film is Stallone’s action masterpiece The Expendables. The cast alone is enough to bring in most passerby’s, but we fans of the film genre only need to hear the names Arnold, Bruce, and Sly in order to pre-order our tickets.

The casting alone is proof that Stallone is making this film for fans of the genre, and anyone else caught in the crossfire is OK, too. With that in mind, Lionsgate has done a neat new viral ad to promote the film on YouTube. Unlike the last viral web spot we’ve seen for the film, which called for us to prove our manhood by buying a ticket, this one is official and actually sanctioned by Lionsgate. Still, they’re both pretty awesome.

Be sure to check out the full video over at YouTube, and make sure you’ve got about 2 minutes to kill, because there’s no pausing allowed. With this kind of ad possible over at Youtube, you can expect to see plenty of studios taking the chance and trying out viral marketing for the first time.

Expendables is set to hit theaters on August 13th, and stars Sly, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dolph Lundgren.

Playstation 3, Sony’s seventh generation console, has been on the market for almost four years now. It’s had two models, two hard drive sizes, a top-of-the-line Bluray player, a motion controller (with another one on the way), and complete connectivity with its portable predecessor. Overall, you could say the system has had an impressive history. But is Sony already working to release a new console? This video certainly hints to that.

Posted by Kotaku earlier today, the video begins in sort of a complex, labeled S.C.E. Principal Scientific Research Laboratory, Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan (coincidentally the same city where Sony has its offices). A woman is talking to the cameraman, then a man in a lab coat, as they race frantically through the facility.

They speak in anxious tones as they make their way to a room, where a man is lying on the floor holding a controller. When they remove his glasses and try to remove the controller from his hands, he begins shrieking. In the background, a television displays the Playstation symbol, and the video cuts to black with the words “PS4 V3.1 – Please Wait A Moment” written in Japanese.

While the video isn’t confirmed to be the work of Sony or Playstation themselves, the appearance of the video as well as the words and images displayed certainly warrant some speculation. The image that appears on the TV certainly looks three-dimensional, but the appearance of the word “PS4″ definitely makes it seem like a new Playstation is what this video is really all about. Check out the trailer for yourself after the jump and let us know what you’re take is.

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There’s no denying the success and appeal of the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game. It quickly rose to be the highest selling Star Wars franchise game ever and was universally praised for its high quality visuals and exciting gameplay. At the Spike VGAs, the first trailer was released for the game’s sequel, aptly named Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. But since the VGAs, news of the game has been sparse.

Lucas Arts has recently launched the game’s website which looks to take the viral route to promote the game. Connecting to Facebook, visitors can track the progress of Subject 1157 from inside his bacta tank, listening to audio logs and playing games to help uncover memories of Vader’s former apprentice.

Some notable questions come up through exploring the site. First and foremost is how the two games will be tied together, especially since there were two drastically different endings to choose from at the end of the first Force Unleashed and the aftermaths these lead to for the apprentice. Next comes the question of the dual lightsabers.

While we have seen this done in the past, these lightsabers are shown to be blue while traditionally within Star Wars, the Sith only use red. Does this mean the apprentice is no longer a pawn of the Dark Side? Finally, keep your ears tuned to the audio clue at the end of the trailer when a very familiar voice gives a foreboding warning to those who dare traverse down this game’s dark past.

Star Wars: the Force Unleashed 2 hits stores on October 26th, 2010. Check out all the pics and video after the jump.

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Last week, we brought you a great video from the online Lost Slapdown campaign from ABC in which The Muppets harass Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse about Lost. In these videos, the network takes a lighter look at the ending of the series as we count down to the finale this Sunday night.

Knowing that ABC is owned by Disney, that gives the chance for great crossovers from some old favorites such as The Muppets. Also, who wouldn’t love to see Lost co-creator Carlton Cuse chat it up with the Swedish Chef about the ending?

In the two videos after the jump, you’ll get just that, as well as a pretty funny video in which PePe the King Prawn, Bobo the Bear, and Carl all audition with Lindelof and Cuse to play the famed Smoke Monster. There are some classic Muppet moments, so any fan of either franchise will most certainly be entertained.

Check out the videos after the jump, and be sure to catch the 2 hour series finale of Lost this Sunday at 7 ET on ABC.

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It’s no secret that we’re all pretty big fans of NBC’s Community around The Flickcast offices. Between the creative mind of The Sarah Silverman Program, Dan Harmon running the show, the outstanding cast of Chevy Chase, Joel McHale, Ken Jeong and more, and the impressive week-to-week episodes, we believe it could go down as one of the best sitcoms of all time.

With that said, we’re the first to gobble up any kind of Community fodder that NBC and Universal has to offer us. Lately, they’ve been ramping up their web programming with The Spanish Video Assignment, starring Danny Pudi, Ken Jeong, and Dino Stamatopoulo as Star-burns.

The video is like a webshow junkie’s dream. Lots of green screen backgrounds, an intergalactic battle, and sideburns that shoot lasers.

NBC recently went behind the scenes of the web shorts with some of the cast and the more hilarious moments. Check out the two features after the jump, and catch Community at 8pm ET/PT every Thursday night on NBC.

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While most of the civilized world will be heading to the theaters to see Favreau and Downey, Jr. knock out another killer super hero flick with Iron Man 2, there is a good portion of the fan community that can’t wait to get the first glimpse at J.J. Abrams’ newest secret project, tentatively titled Super 8.

The first we even heard about the trailer was earlier this week, as Abrams announced that it will be attached to the front of Iron Man 2 prints, and that he expects more people to be talking about the trailer than the film itself after the walk out of the theater.

He rumored that it could be a prequel to 2008′s Cloverfield, which he produced, but after viewing this trailer, we now know that this film is the project that he and Steven Spielberg have been collaborating on.

We won’t spoil any of the content in the trailer for you, in case you’re waiting it out for the theater. Otherwise, check out the handicam version of the trailer after the jump, and we’ll be sure to keep you informed on Abrams and the upcoming Super 8.

(Thanks to reader Caley for the heads up on this)

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With all the movies coming out these days its easy to get lost in all the promotions by the studios. In an effort to get audiences interested in their particular film, they often deluge potential movie goers with a whole bunch of promotional stuff that due to the sheer amount, is often overlooked or just plain ignored. Sometimes, however, something comes along that’s kinda fun and deserves a bit of attention.

One such promotional tie-in is Universal’s current Get Him to the Greek song contest. To enter is simple, especially for all you budding rockstars out there.

Just record your cover version of Infant Sorrow’s (Russel Brand’s fictional band in the film) hit song “Bangers, Beans & Mash” and enter for a chance to win a trip to the world premiere of Get Him to the Greek at L.A.’s famous Greek Theatre. 20 runners-up will win limited edition Infant Sorrow merchandise, so don’t feel bad.

Get Him to the Greek features Jonah Hill and Russell Brand and is directed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall‘s Nicholas Stoller. It tells the story of a record company executive (Hill) with three days to drag an uncooperative rock legend (Brand) to Hollywood for a comeback concert. It also stars Sean Combs, Elisabeth Moss, Rose Byrne and Colm Meaney. It hits theaters June 4.