Check out the new film “Eagle Eye” and you’ll get a virtual Circuit City ad smack in the middle of the movie.
I get why product placement exists on TV. Modern gadgets like remote controls and TiVo mean viewers can skp commercials, so the networks have to pay for their broadcasts somehow.
Movies don’t get that excuse. People shell out good money to see them, and the films routinely make boatloads of cash – both in theaters and on DVD.
So why do we suffer ads?
Maybe because too many actors demand $20 million a picture salaries and the studios have to dredge up the cash somehow. Or because an action movie isn’t an action movie unless we see a dozen tractor trailers collide every 20 minutes.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
So why do we suffer ads?
Because, in the main, the viewers don’t care. I’ve complained about ads in theaters for years and the general reaction is a yawn. I’ve even had people tell me in response that they like ads.
One would think that for all it’s lefty leanings, that Hollywood would be in the forefront of ad discouragement. It’s quite literally, after all, rampant commercialism.
Great point … where all the actors who rail against “corporations” and the like when it’s time to clamp down on product placements?
cricket … cricket.
Good for complaining, and count me in as someone who cares. I loved “Iron Man,” but when he reaches out for a Burger King cheeseburger the film’s spell on me shattered.
The IMDb linked to an article about product placement in science fiction today. They have one of my favourite examples, the Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers in I, Robot. They didn’t have the equally in-your-face ad for iPods and Apple that was Blade: Trinity, but that isn’t really science fiction, is it?
Actually, have you noticed that at least 70% of the computers in movies and TV shows are Macs, and most of the identifiable PCs are Dells?
Product placement as such has never bothered me. When it’s used right, it can add to a movie (where’s Bond without Aston Martin, Omega, Walther, etc.), and when it’s used badly it annoys people, and therefore becomes self-punishing. I think that most probably goes unnoticed. All those years of Mac placement, yet the vast majority of people still own and/or use PCs (I am writing this on a Dell, but I had a discount coupon).
Even Mrs. WWTW, no movie fan herself (sigh), spots product placements all the time.
Yeah, some can be worked into a story well, but others are too jarring.
Frankly, I thought that the Burger King placement made sense, story-wise; the blatant aspect was that Downey’s Stark would have eaten the burger (and others) by the time he arrived at the press conference. But I digress…meh. It is akin to the price point creep the major airlines use these days, rather than simply raise the ticket prices – it IS another means to underwrite ever-increasingly expensive films.