I have not yet made it a point to see any of the screenings of Morgan Spurlock’s POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, although based on what Kevin wrote in his Weekly Alternatives post it may be worth it just to hear some of the interview segments. But, other than that, what’s really the point? Yes, there’s product placement in pretty much every film nowadays. Movies have gone from people drinking from cans labeled Cola to drinking Pepsi and Coca-Cola while they drive down the street in their Fords and Chevys while talking on their Sony Ericsson phones.
Thing is, product placement has actually moved on from what I describe above. It’s no longer enough to simply have a director dedicate what pretty much amounts to a two second freeze frame of a product’s logo, such as Nokia’s prominent placement in Star Trek. Nope, now the commercials have moved from simply being in the movie to being just as big as the movie, if not bigger, and Thor provides one of the latest examples.
This weekend I saw a pair of new Thor related marketing tie-ins while watching the NBA playoffs and you can be sure said products will stick out like a sore thumb when I attend the screening as I will not only be on the lookout for these, but others. But it’s hard to complain, considering I read in The Hollywood Reporter over the weekend the film cost $150 million to make. Marvel and Paramount have to come up with the money somehow in an attempt to make the story of a fallen god seem a little less risky.
The two examples I saw include the Dr. Pepper and Acura commercials I’ve included at the bottom of this post. I’ve seen the Acura angle for some time as I remember posts from folks attending WonderCon in San Francisco. Movie bloggers were running around with fake S.H.I.E.L.D. membership cards, boasting an Acura-sponsored website where you could get a membership card of your own. Then came the Thor advertorials (at least they got paid) as some sites wrote flattering posts dedicated to Slurpee’s marketing tie-in. Will Thor get brain freeze in the film? If he does will you cringe at the blatant commercialization?
There have been a few instances I can remember in the past where I watched a film and actually got tired of all the product logos I was being bombarded with. The most egregious example was Michael Bay’s The Island (see video), where it was hard to find a corner of the frame that didn’t have a corporate sponsor. It’s at this point where I feel product placement has over-stepped its boundaries, and with instances like what’s happening with Thor, I think we may have found the latest example of what not to do.
If I’m unable to separate the commercial from the final product does it cease to be a movie? Major corporations have done their own mini-movies in the past, such as BMW’s series of short films directed by Tony Scott, Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces), Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes), Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel) and starring Clive Owen and featuring the likes of Don Cheadle, Madonna, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, Mickey Rourke, James Brown, Gary Oldman, Danny Trejo and Marilyn Manson. Those were simply commercials produced by BMW that used their cars, big name directors and big name actors… Other than the running time, what is really the difference between those films and Thor?
I just wonder, at what point will our blockbuster movies become about something more than telling a story and entertaining? At what point will they become massive commercials? If they haven’t already.
