The movie brand is getting a lot of mileage out of a well-known Liam Neeson line in a series of digital initiatives to promote the upcoming film.
Film studio 20th Century Fox is riffing off of a well-known line in the first movie in its “Taken” trilogy to push the third and final installment, which will be in U.S. theaters on January 9.
The line, in which Neeson, as ex-government operative Bryan Mills, concerns a particular set of skills he has and will use against those who have kidnapped his daughter.
As such, the movie brand is actually running a promotion on LinkedIn in which Neeson as Mills will record a video endorsing one lucky LinkedIn user for their own particular set of skills.
Or, as the brand says on its Facebook page, “He may find you. He may review you. He may endorse you.”
The brand made the announcement in a video in which Neeson as Mills says his own skills include contract negotiation, international relations, transportation logistics, multi-party conflict resolution and recovery of valuable assets.
Neeson encourages LinkedIn users to follow the “Taken 3” page on the network to enter.
Per the “Taken 3″ website, Neeson is returning as Mills, whose “life is shattered when he’s falsely accused of a murder that hits close to home,” so he “employs his ‘particular set of skills’ to track the real killer and exact his unique brand of justice.”
The brand also created a “12 Skills of Christmas” video.
And the site encourages fans to sign up to “receive a very particular set of updates.”
The franchise has a sizable audience: “Taken” has 5 million Facebook fans and the trailer for the upcoming installment has 9 million views.
Additional digital content includes Bryan Mills Kicked My Ass, which asks consumers to upload photos of themselves and add bruises and other injuries. The resulting image can be shared with the hashtag #BryanMillsKickedMyAss and the text “mess with Bryan Mills and you will look like this!”
The brand has also rolled out exclusive “Taken 3” GIFs for GIF Keyboard, the iOS app that allows users to send GIFs and video responses from their keyboards.
The first two movies in the franchise have grossed nearly $300 million, per IMDB.
What do you think of the brand’s efforts to push the movie?