Flight centers on an airline pilot played by Denzel Washington who is an alcoholic, therefore he drinks a lot of alcohol in the film as one would expect. Personally I can’t remember what kind of alcohol his character was drinking, but thankfully for the sake of this article Anheuser-Busch has reminded me… the beer he’s drinking is Budweiser. This comes to my attention as Anheuser-Busch has called for director Robert Zemeckis and Paramount to obscure all images of Budweiser beer from digital copies of the film and future releases.
The Associated Press reports Robert McCarthy, the vice president of Budweiser, said Anheuser-Busch wasn’t contacted by Paramount or the production company of director Robert Zemeckis for permission to use the beer in Flight.
“We would never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,” McCarthy wrote in a letter received by the AP. “We have asked the studio to obscure the Budweiser trademark in current digital copies of the movie and on all subsequent adaptations of the film, including DVD, On Demand, streaming and additional prints not yet distributed to theaters.”
The AP also notes that experts say the film is unlikely to run afoul of trademark protections, as courts have ruled that products may be featured in films regardless of whether the companies approve, as long as they have some artistic relevance.
First off, I’m all for using actual product in films, it’s always better than seeing someone drink a can of something labeled “Beer” or “Cola”. The problem as of late has become the amount of product placement in films where brand names are often featured and/or highlighted when it has no artistic relevance. It sort of makes me wish that law worked both ways.
As for Mr. McCarthy and Budweiser, give me a break. All they are doing is drawing more attention to its brand and its association with a film about an alcoholic. I highly doubt Paramount will be paying any out of pocket expenses to obscure the labels because that would set a pretty nasty precedent, but it does make me wonder how much money Anheuser-Busch typically provides to some film productions for product placement, if any, and whether that would give Paramount pause, if only for a second.
