Disney looks to take movie marketing beyond viral to voluminous.

The 1982 film Tron broke new – if unheralded – ground in visual effects as the first motion picture to rely largely on computer-designed elements. Like Michelangelo trying to paint the Sistine Chapel with rocks, the attempt to create a computer-generated movie with only 330MB of disc space produced a crude and compromised redention of what Tron‘s creators had hoped it would be. As such, the film modestly recouped it’s $17 million budget. Considering only a decade later that entirely computer-generated characters, like those of Terminator 2 or Jurassic Park, were atonishing audiences, Tron in hindsight seemed even more like a cellouid’s equivalent of Pong.

Nearly 30 years later, the sequel Tron: Legacy has little ground left to break in terms of visual effects. But the film appears destined to try and become a trendsetter on its own in the world of marketing:

By the time the movie arrives in theaters on Dec. 17, Walt Disney Studios will have spent three and a half years priming the audience pump. The most recent push came last week at Comic-Con International, the annual pop culture convention here. For the third year in a row, Disney teased fans with exclusive “Tron: Legacy” footage. No other movie has guest-starred here so often…

Disney isn’t merely content to draw out the world’s longest cinematic tease. Forgoing the traditional movie tie-ins of fast food restaurants and toys, Disney is aiming for a marketing effort so wide that the studio is no longer merely marketing a film but an entire culture.

Skin-tight black uniforms with white and blue glowing light are part of Donatella Versace’s latest line. Recording artists such as Rihanna, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are also doning Tron-esque clothes. Audi has even built a concept car based on Tron‘s signature light cycle. By modern marketing standards, Tron: Legacy isn’t an event – it’s a lifestyle.

From Disney’s standpoint – why not? The house that a mouse built is wagering a staggering $350 million budget on a sequel to a critical and commercial bomb from the 1980s.

Tron: Legacy simply represents another stage in Hollywood’s endless quest to find an increasingly difficult to target audience at lesser and lesser cost. The advent of DVR and the expansion of cable channels has made it easier for film’s most powerful advertising weapon – TV ads – to all but disappear.

While viral campaigns of making online converts one at a time have worked well for modestly budgeted films (see Paranormal Experience’s success), the margins for mainstream Hollywood fare rival Congressional budget deficits. Consider this – if Tron makes $1 billion worldwide it’ll be in the same league as Alice in Wonderland and considered a flop. Alice “only” cost $200 million and earned the same amount. Little wonder then if Disney will leave no marketing stone unturned this fall.