Some time back, cakes were sent out by "The Joker" to promote the release of The Dark Knight. Inside the cakes, there were cell phones that provided instructions that directed fans to the premiere viewing of the six-minute prologue that was attached to the IMAX viewings of I Am Legend. According to a scoop over at Batman on Film, those phones have been renewed to remain active until March 29, 2008.

Their scooper writes:

Chicago Joker Phone Guy' here. Just got a text at 10:49 PM (CST) on The Joker cake phone that said that $30 was added to my account and the phone is now good until 3/29/2008.

After looking at the account information once the phone was initially received back in December, I found that the phone was set to expire tomorrow (1/30), leading us Bat-Fans to believe that the viral campaign (at least with the phones) was going to end. With the addition of the extra minutes, this means that the viral campaign lives on despite the untimely death of Heath Ledger (may he rest in peace). I have looked on message boards and several of the other cities have also confirmed that their phones have received extensions until the end of March as well.

[If this is indeed the case], I applaud Warner Bros. for continuing the marketing campaign and not letting the fans down or suppressing Heath's extraordinary performance. We all have the greatest respect for Mr. Ledger and I believe we all know how to separate the Joker character from Heath. Heath's performance should be celebrated and shown to the world and I believe that is exactly what Mr. Nolan and WB plan to do.

It was unclear whether or not Warner Bros. intended to continue the viral marketing campaign, which heavily featured the Joker, as portrayed by Heath Ledger. With Ledger's untimely death, many fans wondered if the studio would be willing to continue the campaign, with most fans believing that the best way to honor Ledger would be to continue the campaign. With the renewal of the phones, that now seems more likely.

As MovieWeb/SuperheroFlix were one of the lucky sites to be involved in getting a Joker phone, we haven't received any such text described above, but what we did notice a few days ago was that the phone's initial balance was about to run out.

As of now, the phone still works, is continually charged, and waiting for more calls from The Joker and his crew. We'll keep you in the loop as our phone starts to ring again.

CLICK HERE for our original story.

CLICK HERE for our Joker Cake gallery.