R/GA Ignition and Prettybird are behind the latest viral marketing campaign for X-Men: Days of Future Past. The timely campaign (coming just days after the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination), positions Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) as President Kennedy’s convicted killer. It’s a compelling and immersive story that ties together the X-Men universe and American history.
The above video, “The Bent Bullet,” is just the beginning. The Bent Bullet website contains a wealth of other material (in addition to the video), mixing text with video and interactive elements, including a look inside Magneto’s Trask Industries designed cell. If you’re a fan of the X-Men, it’s pretty fascinating stuff. There’s even a full-length article, attributed to Harper Simmons, profiling Erik Lehnsherr and questioning his involvement in the JFK assassination. In the article, Lehnsherr finally speaks, and seems to implicate a different X-Men character in the assassination.
The Bent Bullet’s alternate history claims Kennedy had prepared a speech addressing the tumultuous relationship between humans and mutants, calling on Americans to accept those with the X-Gene, if only implicitly. It also addresses Kennedy’s CIA-led Project: WideAwake, which led to the assassinations of Azazel and Tempest and was presumably the motive for Kennedy’s assassination by the mutant Lehnsherr. X-Men obsessives will love this (and probably have already experienced the whole site), but it’s well worth the time of even casual fans or curious parties. Kudos to R/GA and Prettybird for pulling off such an immersive, intriguing, and just plain fun web experience to promote X-Men: Days of Future Past.