Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has launched The Wolverine Unleashed, an “immersive” digital experience that takes fans inside actor Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of the superhero mutant Wolverine.
The latest Wolverine flick, The Wolverine, was the sixth film in which Jackman played the character. This tablet-based experience coincides with the film’s digital HD release on November 19.
The Wolverine, which had a production budget of $120 million and was released in theaters in July, made $132 million in the U.S. for a total of $415 million worldwide, according to online movie publication and box office reporting service Box Office Mojo.
Digital agency Soap Creative worked with Twentieth Century Fox to create what it calls “an up-close-and-personal tablet web experience” of the actor and character in this and preceding Wolverine movies.
Soap says the experience gives fans “the ability to navigate a full-scale digital version of the Wolverine’s body, allowing them to explore his mutant powers and psyche” with close attention to Jackman’s interpretation of the character.
In other words, users can navigate through Jackman/Wolverine’s body parts, including eyes/ears/nose, brain, heart, DNA, muscles, claws and nerves, and click on elements like memories, nightmares and healing to find additional content like YouTube videos and concept art.
A Soap rep says Wolverine Unleashed allows users to interact on three levels: on the surface level, users can roam around Jackman’s body, locating hotspots; the mid-level appears as a medical scan; and, at the deepest level, users learn about the root causes and motivations behind every aspect of his character.
The rep also says the experience incorporates native touch-based gestures that consumers use on tables like pinch-and-zoom to navigate between the levels. It also uses the iPad’s gyroscope “to add extra depth to the UI elements when a user tilts their device whilst exploring,” the rep says.
While moviegoers likely know plenty about Wolverine after six films, the rep says: “There’s a lot more to his character, and Soap wanted to create an interactive experience where anyone, from diehard fans to newbies, can find out things they didn’t know — not just about his surface features, but the deeper causes behind those features — both physiologically and psychologically.”
Soap says it also worked with Twentieth Century Fox on Wolverine Experience Kiosks to promote the theatrical release. According to YouTube, these kiosks are an interactive augmented reality experience using Kinect for Xbox 360 that brought Wolverine’s superpowers into users’ hands.