Pre-order bonuses have been a long and hotly debated topic, but whether you’re all for it or against it, it has ubiquitously been a joke amongst gamers that other things outside the realm of video games may someday adopt the same marketing practices. Well, the day has arrived where pre-orders have come to the big screen, and leave it to a movie based on a Ubisoft game to have pre-order bonuses.

Assassin’s Creed may be the first movie based on a video game to have this kind of campaign, but it is not the first movie to do so, one of the first was The 5th Wave, check out the promo they launched for that one here...

Movie studios are always looking for ways to market films in such a manner that they create early revenue flow and provide data on audience reactions and behaviors to fine-tune the target audience of marketing campaigns, and that’s exactly what a company called, Kernel, has set out to do. Kernel was created with the mission of creating hype for upcoming feature films and to convert that hype into revenue by pre-selling movie tickets, not just that, but to exponentially increase the cash flow by offering pre-order bonuses such as, t-shirts, digital downloads upon home release of films, exclusive content in said downloads, digital downloads of the scripts, posters, PVC and Funko Pop figurines, and many other collectibles depending on which package you pre-order. Oh wait, did I not mention that? Yeah, well there are tiers on how much you can spend for a package of pre-hype stuff for a movie that may or may not be terrible and not live up to your expectations, not unlike video games, and we’re talking Kickstarter level tiers here, ranging from $25 to $1,200  such as in the case of Assassin’s Creed.

Packages for Assassin’s creed start with a digital version of the script at the lowest tier, an official hoodie with the archetypal assassin’s hood at the mid-range, and a 1:1 replica of a 15th century crossbow like the one used in the film at its highest level and price. Those are just some examples but there are a few more packages in between.

Personally, I was only somewhat excited about this movie when I saw the trailer but upon learning that most of it takes place in the future rather than the past I’ve become highly cautious of it. Regardless, if pre-orders and Assassin’s Creed are something that floats your boat you can check out the Pre-order packages here.