‘Real Steel’ ARG gets in the ring

Real Steel screen grab (Dreamworks)

It’s such a fun time to be a movie fan if you happen to enjoy ARGs, puzzles, stunts and elaborate marketing campaigns that lead toward a film’s opening weekend like tasty bread crumbs in the forest-floor of digital pop culture. Here’s one now reaching crouton level:  Since February there has been a “coming soon” site on WRB.com with a shiny metal logo for a league sport called World Robot Boxing floating between two steel cables. If you Googled the term you’d quickly find articles and references to the upcoming Shawn Levy film “Real Steel,” which Hero Complex readers already know has the look of a film that might surprise people.

This past weekend at the big gamer gathering called PAX East, attendees found some die-cut, paper gizmos that look like the remote controllers used in the trailer for the film. On the flip side of those cutout “devices” was that same WRB logo, the website’s URL and (of course) a special code. A few hours ago, a countdown on the website hit zero and those codes from PAX  can now turn a key that unlocks this online doorway. Here’s the code (if you can read it).

I’ve heard a bit about where this stuff will lead and there are levels, layers, cool reveals and special access offers coming down the line. I think you’ll see that director Levy and perhaps even star Hugh Jackman will be using this particular campaign to communicate with fans in some special ways…

“Real Steel” hits theaters on Oct. 7.

– Geoff Boucher

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