This weekend, the new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises will premiere alongside The Avengers in theaters all across the United States.

This will most likely be the big “story” trailer, arranged to set the stage for the July 20 release of the film, the final piece of the puzzle before the lights go down and the Christopher Nolan Batman saga ends.

That said, Warner Brothers has launched a new viral marketing effort today, designed to give fans a shot at getting the trailer a little early - one frame at a time.

Today, TheDarkKnightRises.com has turned into a folder, an investigation into John Doe, AKA The Batman. Once you get to page 5…that’s a whole lot of locations, isn’t it? Then the last page? A bunch of film.

Clicking the bag of film brings you here, where fans are instructed to go to each location, find the evidence and tweet the findings. As the evidence is found, more and more frames of the film are being released.

[caption id=“attachment_6378” align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Dark Knight Graffiti as seen in India”][/caption]

You can follow the search as it happens via the hashtag #tdkr07202012.  Thus far, we’ve gotten some very cool shots of the viral graffiti, and if all pans out, the trailer will be released early.

Someone at the SuperHero Hype forums has already been kind enough to put together a GIF of the images so far…

While the ARG elements for The Dark Knight Rises have not been anywhere near as amazing or engrossing as those found for The Dark Knight, I have to say, every time one pops up, I get excited - and that’s the goal anyway, right?

The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters on July 20th, 2012.