- Becky Ebenkamp

To get into The Spirit of the film's Christmas Day release, studio Lionsgate and digital media company Big Stage Entertainment developed a mobile app that lets consumers swap the movie's stars Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes and others in scenes with their own 3-D images on iPhones, iPods and PCs.

The Spirit iPhone application, which is available for free at Apple's App Store and at MyCityScreams.com, was designed to appeal to the tech savvy fans of the cult graphic artist/film director, Frank Miller (300, Sin City). Those with the iPhone, can click on their picture, upload it to create a 3-D clone or "@ctor" and then shake the phone to get into scenes and still images. There are six animated scenes and 20 images to choose from.

The iPhone app can be downloaded from the MyCityScreams.com site and used on PCs and Macs that run on newer, Intel-based systems. But it won't work on older Macs.

Marketing of the app is viral at social networks. Big Stage sent a newsletter item out to "tens of thousands of its members, who visit the site to create avatars and such. People who love video games, action movies, comic books and digital media are the core of our membership," said Jon Kraft, co-founder/executive vp of the South Pasadena, Calif.-based company. "This film is a bulls eye in terms of content for our audience and [the promo] fits nicely with our technology."