Director John Erick Dowdle (Devil, Quarantine) is headed here to begin shooting for The Coup. The film sees a family of expats trying to escape from their home as a military coup ravages an as-yet-unnamed Southeast Asian country. And what do Southeast Asian countries do when they have a coup? They kill every foreigner in sight!

Oddly, they picked Bangkok to shoot this movie. Oddly, they picked November. Oddly, the amnesty bill is set to go through parliament this November. Anyone else connecting the dots?

Someone is clearly trying to save a lot of money on production values. Rather than make CGI protesters, and torch papier mache models of our city, Dowdle has carefully engineered an actual coup to take place in our peaceful land, so he can go running around with an iPhone 5c, Pierce Brosnan in tow, and make the most realistic movie ever, all for the price of a cheap tour package to the Land of Smiles.

Of course, we’re absolutely thrilled. If you can recall, the last time this city had a military crackdown, Bangkok was an absolute riot—well, apart from the nearly 100 people who got shot. There was free food in Ratchaprasong for weeks, you weren’t even expected to show up for work half the time, and social media was actually used to discuss news, not your lunch.

To make sure you make it into The Coup, we’d like to crowd-source an effort to geo-tag any sightings of the film crew #thecoupbk. Then we can all rush over to the set, armed with foot clappers or hand clappers, or whatever high-tech protesting device you’ve got, and elbow our way into Brosnan’s closeups. If this city is going to burn again, we at least want an Oscar for our troubles.

Finally, we’d like to thank Thaksin for this golden opportunity. All along, we thought the amnesty bill was just about him wanting to come home and get his B43 billion back, at the risk of causing the nation to implode. In fact, he just wanted us to attract new investment from Hollywood, and give everyone their 15 minutes of fame. Thanks, Loong Maew!

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