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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This weekend may be a tough choice at the box office for most theater-goers. But if you’re looking for a film that will blow your eyeballs right out of your sockets, it looks like Rogue Pictures’ Skyline may be that film.

Directed by the team of Colin and Greg Strause, the SFX brothers who have worked on films like Avatar to Iron Man 2, the film is setting itself to be an epic alien invasion movie in the vain of Cloverfield, Independence Day, and War of the Worlds. Just imagine if Roland Emmerich or Matt Reeves knew, from personal experience, what was possible in the scheme of digital effects.

There isn’t much to the story that we haven’t seen before, but the element to keep an eye out for here is the use of CG effects and how an entire film can play into that world. We’ve got two spoiler-free clips for you to check out after the jump.

Be sure to catch Skyline in theaters everywhere this Friday.

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TNT, the network known for its legal/detective dramas (including endless reruns of Law & Order), is now venturing into Sci-Fi with Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks on a series that will star Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood. The series, despite not yet having a name, has a pilot directed by Carl Franklin (Devil in A Blue Dress, Out of Time) — who is also working with Spielberg on episodes of the forthcoming WWII television mini-series The Pacific — and a story written by Saving Private Ryan scribe Robert Rodat.

Noah Wyle, who has become quite familiar with TNT through his numerous The Librarian TV Movies, will star as a professor that winds up in the rebellion against the alien invaders. Bloodgood, who really seems to have a taste for the genre with her past roles Terminator: Salvation and the “canceled too-soon” series Journey Man, will play a therapist that works with surviving children of the invasion.

Other names of cast members include Seychelle Gabriel (The Spirit, and M. Night Syamalan’s The Last Airbender), Jessy Schram (Life, Crash: The Series) and Drew Roy (Greek, Lincoln Heights). According to reports, the series opens shortly after aliens have wiped out most of humanity. The aliens are now rounding up the few people left, but they are met with strong resistance from a group of soldiers and civilians who fight for their survival – all while struggling to maintain their humanity.

The series is set to debut sometime in 2011.