‘The Golden Compass’ Hypes Film Machine With ‘Meet Your Daemon’ Tool

CHICAGO – “The Golden Compass,” which is currently scheduled to hit theaters on Dec. 7, 2007, has released an interactive tool to help hype its film machine.

The film invites you to meet your own daemon (pronounced dee-mon). The generator spits out an animal that best represents your personality. The avatar can be taken with you and embedded on your Web site, MySpace page or as your AIM logo.

According to the site:

In [this film’s] world, a person’s soul lives on the outside of their body in the form of a daemon: an animal spirit that accompanies them through life.

A child’s daemon can change shape – assuming all the forms that a child’s potential inspires – but as a person ages, their daemon gradually settles into one form according to their character and nature.

In classical mythology, a daemon is a subordinate deity. It’s the genius of a person’s attendant spirit.

“This feature lets you personally experience one of the most unique and engaging elements of [the film],” Gordon Paddison, executive vice president of New Media Marketing, said in a statement. “You can identify your daemon and then share it with your ... social networks on a variety of digital platforms.”

The daemon is created based on answering 20 personality profile questions. For example, the site says this journalist is a daemon named Delilia. Specifically, the site said:

Your profile reveals that you are responsible, modest, assertive, clever and sociable. You are therefore matched with the mouse daemon.

Your daemon, Delila, is one of 138 mouse daemons within the total daemon population of 2,405. Delilia is a female daemon as human and daemon pairs are typically the opposite sex.