In theaters Wednesday, the Barbie movie is far from the only feature film inspired by a franchise or its creator. For the past ten years, luxury houses, car manufacturers and many others have taken over our screens.
Farewell to the roles of extras, hello to the foreground. In the cinema, brands are no longer satisfied with product placements: Barbie (2023) by Greta Gerwig, this Wednesday in theaters, at Ferrari (2023) by Michael Mann or House of Gucci (2021) by Ridley Scott, they now provide the raw material for films. For the release of the feature film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the candy pink brand and its parent company Mattel are getting maximum marketing exposure, all over the world, following in the footsteps of the films. Lego (since 2014) that have invaded the screens.
“Highlighting values, a personality or a role”
“We’re still talking about product placement, but that has nothing to do with what we did a century ago. The public is so close to brands that it’s no longer a problem” to devote an entire film to it, explains to AFP Jean-Marc Lehu, management specialist at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
“The idea (of this kind of movies) is to highlight values, a personality or a role that the brand wants to give itself in society”abounds Géraldine Michel, director of the brand and values chair at the IAE Paris-Sorbonne. “People are seduced by these stories. Brands have taken the place of politics and religion, they create communities and movies are part of that. It’s propaganda on a massive scale.”
Among the brands present on screen in the coming months, the most famous Formula 1 team could make the event at the Venice Film Festival in September. The author of HeatMichael Mann, is approached to present his film there Ferrari. American comedian Adam Driver plays the founder of the sports automobile firm in the late 1950s, when his company was on the verge of bankruptcy. The brand has already taken its first steps in the cinema in Le Mans 66 (2019) by James Mangold, worn by Matt Damon and Christian Bale.
Saint Laurent becomes a producer
The automobile is not the only universe to flirt with the seventh art. A decade after having seen its creator embodied twice in the same year on screen, by Pierre Niney and Gaspard Ulliel, the house of Yves Saint Laurent became in the spring the first luxury brand to found its own production company, Saint Laurent Productions. .
The idea is to produce films with big names. Bet already successful in terms of exhibition: his first work, the medium-length Strange Way of Life (2023), directed by Pedro Almodovar, had the honors of the Cannes Film Festival.
Still in the Kering group, the Gucci family was entitled to its biopic, House of Gucci, with a five-star cast: Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jared Leto… Ridley Scott returns to it on the assassination of the heir to the Italian house, sponsored by his ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani. The brand’s bags and accessories appear countless times on screen and actress Salma Hayek, also wife of Kering boss François-Henri Pinault, plays a role.
Many films about brands are less glamorous and often built on the same pattern, retracing the epic and sometimes the fall of a genius entrepreneur. Steve Jobs (Apple) inspired two films and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) was bitten in The Social Network (2010) with Jesse Eisenberg. But less famous figures also inspire, like the creator of McDonald’s (The founder2016) or those of BlackBerry (2023) at the heart of a film that traces the rise and fall of an iconic brand of the 2000s, presented at the last Berlinale.
Platforms are getting into it too
The genre has also become a lucrative market for platforms: on Amazon Prime Video, Air (2023) by Ben Affleck with Matt Damon tells the story of Sonny Vaccaro, Nike’s sports marketing director, when, on Apple TV+, Tetris (2023) allows to discover “the incredible story of the most popular video game”.
The same platform promises to tell in The Beanie Bubble“one of the most unusual American success stories”: the story of Ty Warner, creator of “big-eyed comforters” Ty, a must in children’s rooms.