Commentary

Kiosks Turn Users Into Wolverines -- Er, The Wolverine

If you are a 12-year-old boy, or were ever one, then you have probably fantasized about being The Wolverine, easily the most hirsute and irritable of Marvel Comics’ pantheon of gravelly voiced, chemically altered weirdos. Now you can make the fantasy reality, thanks to 20thCentury Fox International and Soap Creative, which joined forces (like the X-Men, get it?) to create interactive kiosks that put you in the buff superhero’s fur, as part of a worldwide promotion for “The Wolverine” movie.

The kiosks, which are located in 19 marquee venues around the world, including shopping centers, cinemas, and Comic-Con International in San Diego, marry Microsoft’s interactive Kinect technology with a big-screen format to create an immersive environment where the user can recreate one of the key action scenes from “The Wolverine,” battling a knife-wielding yakuza soldier atop a speeding bullet train. Hand motions control Wolverine’s claws as he (meaning, you) duke it out with the hapless Japanese mobster.

Needless to say, there’s a social media tie-in that allows you to share your limb-shredding skills: users can share digital photos snapped by the kiosks while they’re in the heat of battle, which are also uploaded to the official Facebook page for “The Wolverine.”

Interactive displays and movies seem particularly well-suited to each other: earlier this year ,U.S. cinema advertising network National CineMedia revealed plans to install “Monster Wall” video displays, measuring eight feet by ten feet, which come equipped with NFC, photo-capture and augmented-reality capabilities. Passersby are invited to interact with a variety of entertainment and game content, as well as interactive advertising. The walls are currently being tested in the lobby areas of 10 big theaters located in top markets.

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