New 'Crank: High Voltage' Poster Debuts on Twitter

As newspapers lay dying and DVRs help people skip commercials more easily than ever, movie studios are forced to discover new ways to market their movies.

Increasingly, this means finding a way to make a mark online, but the question remains of how to do it.

With Twitter's presence reaching critical mass recently, everyone has been wondering how best to utilize the site. Well, those behind the marketing of the movie "Crank: High Voltage" discovered a new method.

The movie, which is a sequel to the 2006 Jason Statham action vehicle "Crank," recently became the first movie to have its poster debuted through Twitter.

By releasing the poster, shown at right, through Twitter instead of through the usual channels, the movie got some buzz as the "Tweet" was "Retweeted" from person to person (if you don't know what I am talking about, I highly suggest you sign up for Twitter, it's a great tool).

As for the movie itself, I enjoyed the original for what it was -- a high-octane action ride (or whatever the original's poster might have said). However, I did not expect a sequel. Well, certainly not a sequel starring Jason Statham, since his character, Chev Chelios, died at the end of the movie following a very long drop from an airplane.

Now, normally, I would post a spoiler warning before I told you his character died, but as you can plainly see at the top of the poster, Chev "was dead ... but he got better."

"Crank: High Voltage" will arrive in theaters April 17.