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America Online, Chrysler Corporation and Rogue Pictures have teamed up for a mobile promotion called "IM in the Hunt." The effort is aimed at driving moviegoers to see the thriller "Cry Wolf," a movie about a series of campus murders being foretold by a mysterious AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) user.

The sponsors are driving participants to the promotion by prompting moviegoers to register for the game at the end of trailers for the film at 2,000 theaters nationwide. Participants will receive trivia questions via AIM on their cell phones. Players who answer the questions can instantly win prizes from AOL, such as free ring-tones and games.

"A lot of the game is focused on what's truth and what's lies," said AOL spokeswoman Krista Thomas.

Players are invited to answer questions such as whether or not Halloween began as a Chinese holiday (false). Finalists in the contest will be given the opportunity to participate in a scavenger hunt in Los Angeles with cast members from the film. One grand prizewinner will win a Chrysler Crossfire.

Jeff Wadlow, co-writer and director of "Cry Wolf" was the winner of the 2002 Extreme Filmmaking Competition sponsored by Chrysler. Wadlow was awarded $1 million to produce "Cry Wolf," which will be distributed by Universal's Focus Features and will begin appearing in theaters in September.

AOL's Thomas declined to share numbers with ClickZ, but said there are currently 10 million people using AIM on their cell phones who altogether send an average of 30 million messages per day. The majority of these people are in the film's target demographic, which ranges from older teenagers to 25-year-olds.

Thomas added that AOL will consider the promotion a success if it drives awareness of the film and of using AIM on mobile phones.

"We've already seen a lot of viral buzz out there on the Web," she said.

AOL Takes AIM
During the CTIA Wireless show in New Orleans last spring, AOL introduced several offerings to make AIM more mobile friendly. These services included picture sending & sharing, mobile portals and subsidary MapQuest mapping and directions for wireless users.

At the time, AOL said these wireless initiatives were all about expanding the audience for AIM services and its status in the mobile space.

 Instant Pictures enables PC and camera phone owners to send images to other desktops or phones. The service works with AOL's Multimedia Messaging System (MMS), as well as the Wireless Village server.

AOL also made its online "You've Got Pictures" picture-sharing service available for mobile users.

 Leverages MapQuest investment to introduce GPS-enabled Find Me service. Find Me helps mobile users as well as others, such as friends and relatives, identify their locations. In addition, MapQuest Traffic now delivers traffic data for 90 different U.S. metropolitan areas to handsets.

 AOL updated both its legacy WAP 1 and newer WAP2/XHTML-enabled mobile portals

 The company's Moviefone and CityGuide services were made available to mobile carriers.