The 2008 film Bangkok Dangerous flew under most people’s radar when it was released (with a budget of $45 million, it only made $15 million at the box office). Most bloggers and film critics wrote off the Nicolas Cage action flick completely (it got a measly 9% on Rotten Tomatoes). So, why are we talking about the film a year and half later? Well, we finally found out there was an actual ARG campaign for the film, thanks to a trailer for it being posted on the web. Check it out after the jump.
The company behind the campaign was Phantom Compass, a game production company based in Toronto. They posted the trailer on their YouTube page a few days ago. Take a look at it below.
Here are few quotes from the company about the campaign:
The game was created in 2 weeks by Phantom Compass for a 6-week promotional campaign aimed at competitive, semi-pro, and professional video game players.
Client: Professional Interactive Entertainment for Lionsgate Initiative
Phantom Compass created an Alternate Reality Game aimed at an online game community to support the Hollywood film “Bangkok Dangerous.”
The game echoed the themes of the film in a parallel storyline written and realized by Phantom Compass.
I didn’t see the movie myself, so it’s hard to say just from this information how well the campaign tied in with the film, which is about a hitman (Cage) who’s in Bangkok to pull off a series of jobs, but falls for a local woman and bonds with his errand boy. It doesn’t seem to have helped the film (remember that $15 million I mentioned earlier), but maybe it was fun to play. If you know any more about the Bangkok Dangerous ARG, let us know!
