Movies That Were Secretly Commercials

You paid for the ticket. You also paid for the ad.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. Two primary-colored bicycles parked outside a glass office building, a pizza box and a nap pod in the courtyard.

    10. The Internship

    Shawn Levy · 2013

    Vince Vaughn got the idea from a 60 Minutes piece on Google's culture, then he and Owen Wilson played laid-off salesmen interning there. They shot five days at the real Googleplex. The climax is getting a pizzeria to buy Google ads. Search engine optimized.

  2. Three small British hatchbacks, one red, one white, one blue, racing through a subway tunnel with gold bars stacked in their back seats.

    09. The Italian Job

    F. Gary Gray · 2003

    A remake of the 1969 heist film, with $27 million in gold split among three Mini Coopers that race through the LA subway. Salon called the Minis the stars of the movie. Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron and Edward Norton were essentially the dealership staff.

  3. A beige laptop glowing on a bookstore counter at night, a dial-up modem beside it and a single daisy in a coffee cup.

    08. You've Got Mail

    Nora Ephron · 1998

    Named after AOL's new-mail greeting, with the romance carried out over AOL. Rolling Stone put it on a list of the most egregious product placements ever. AOL then merged with Time Warner, parent of the film's distributor, so the ad eventually bought the studio.

  4. A denim vest and a ballcap hanging on a cabin door at a lakeside summer camp, a milk jug on the porch step.

    07. Ernest Goes to Camp

    John R. Cherry III · 1987

    Ernest P. Worrell was born in a Nashville ad agency, shilling for amusement parks, dairies and car dealers in an estimated 4,000 commercials. Disney saw him upstage Mickey at the Indy 500 and gave him a movie. It made $23.5 million. Vern was not reached for comment.

  5. A black sports car with a gold firebird hood decal jumping a broken bridge, a semi-truck trailer full of beer cases behind it.

    06. Smokey and the Bandit

    Hal Needham · 1977

    Hal Needham saw an ad for the new Trans Am and called Pontiac, which sent four cars, all wrecked by the end. The plot is hauling 400 cases of Coors across state lines because it could not legally be sold east of Texas. The whole film is a beer run with sponsors.

  6. A white volleyball with a red handprint sitting on a tropical beach next to a stack of unopened cardboard shipping boxes.

    05. Cast Away

    Robert Zemeckis · 2000

    Tom Hanks plays a FedEx troubleshooter whose FedEx plane crashes, leaving him with FedEx packages and a Wilson volleyball. FedEx's CEO plays himself. FedEx paid nothing for the placement, and its brand awareness went up in Asia and Europe. Wilson did not get a cut.

  7. A red soda bottle and a paper fast-food bag in the middle of a desert, a small wheelchair tipped over beside them.

    04. Mac and Me

    Stewart Raffill · 1988

    The producer had done McDonald's ad campaigns, and it shows: an alien family revived by Coca-Cola, a dance number inside a McDonald's, and Ronald himself, whom McDonald's had asked not to include. It grossed $6.4 million and won Ronald a Razzie for Worst New Star.

  8. A basketball and a single carrot on a hardwood court under an alien-green spotlight, a pair of high-top sneakers at center court.

    03. Space Jam

    Joe Pytka · 1996

    It began as Hare Jordan, a 1992 Nike Super Bowl ad pairing Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny, and kept the ad's director. The franchise is estimated at $6 billion in revenue, including Air Jordans and Happy Meals. The movie is the long version of the commercial.

  9. A pair of aviator sunglasses on the wing of a gray fighter jet parked on an aircraft carrier deck at sunset, a folding recruitment table nearby.

    02. Top Gun

    Tony Scott · 1986

    The Navy approved the script, moved a dogfight out of Cuba and changed the love interest to a civilian. Recruiters set up booths in some theaters. A producer called it a recruiting video. The famous 500% jump in aviator applicants is disputed. The volleyball scene is not.

  10. A silver power glove resting on a lunchbox in front of a glowing arcade cabinet, a desert highway visible through the window.

    01. The Wizard

    Todd Holland · 1989

    Fred Savage and his silent brother cross the country to a tournament at Universal Studios, where the final round is Super Mario Bros. 3, not yet out in the US. Nintendo approved the script. The book Game Over called it a 100-minute ad that millions of families paid to see.

Honorable mentions

  • A trail of small orange, yellow and brown candies leading across a suburban lawn at night into a backyard shed.

    E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

    Steven Spielberg · 1982

    Not a commercial, just the most profitable accident in candy history. Mars refused to let M&M's appear, fearing the alien would scare kids, so Hershey got Reese's Pieces into the trail Elliott leaves. Hershey's profits rose 65%. Mars has presumably thought about it since.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A cracked smartphone lying face-up in a trash bin, its screen glowing with candy-colored app icons with no symbols on them.

    The Emoji Movie

    Tony Leondis · 2017

    The heroes travel through Candy Crush, Just Dance, Instagram, Spotify and Dropbox, where salvation lives in the cloud. IndieWire called it corporate propaganda in which Spotify saves the world. It won four Razzies, the first animated film to win Worst Picture.

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