If you picked up a copy of The New York Times today, you probably noticed that pages nine and ten are completely blank, save for a URL at the very bottom. Before you wonder if Banksy got ahold of the famous paper for today's New York takeover art piece, it wasn't him and it wasn't a mistake — it's actually a pretty fantastic ad for 20th Century Fox's upcoming adaptation of Markus Zusak's novel, The Book Thief.
The Book Thief takes place in WWII Nazi Germany and tells the story of a young girl who steals saves books from war-torn areas to give them out to other people. The ad (which is blank except for the film's URL at the bottom, WordsAreLife.com) was designed to help one imagine a world without the freeing power of words. According to Deadline, the newspaper says that it is the first time they have run "two consecutive, seemingly blank, back-to-back pages in the A (Main News) section." With such an interesting approach to advertising, which is often reliant on carefully selected text, we will have to wait until the November 15 release date to see if the film can live up to it.
