Daniel Craig resisted Android phone placement in "Spectre" because "James Bond only uses the best"
Internal Sony communications indicated that "Spectre" star Daniel Craig and the movie's director Sam Mendes were both opposed to multimillion dollar product placements for Sony or Samsung Android phones because it could tarnish the suave image of James Bond.
The discussion was revealed last winter when the movie studio's emails were hacked, as noted today by Bond movie aficionado John Gruber of Daring Fireball after Financial Times writer Henry Mance discussed the role product placement plays in movies.
An earlier report by Matt Weinberger of Business Insider UK noted that Sony had initially offered Craig $5 million to carry around its Xperia Z4 phone in the movie.
Discussions involved an $18 million marketing commitment from Sony, escalating to a $50 million marketing and promotional package from Samsung as well as a $5 million product placement for Bond to be seen using an Android phone with Samsung's brand on it.
Leaked emails involving Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli noted that money wasn't the only consideration involved in the decision of whether to take money from Android phone makers in exchange for promotion.
"BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby Sam and Daniel don't like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the 'best,' and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the 'best')," wrote Andrew Gumpert, President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Columbia Pictures.
Product placement in movies and TV has become a big business, and Bond films have long been a vehicle for associating some of the world's most luxurious brands with the super-spy character, from Aston Martin cars to Rolex watches. It's harder to picture James Bond using an Android phone, given both their cheap image and notoriety for suffering a litany security vulnerabilities such as Stagefright.
Apple has long offered free access to its products to a variety of movie and TV studios, resulting in decades of pictures and shows where virtually every model of Apple computer has made a big screen appearance of some sort.
While Nokia, Samsung and other commodity hardware licensees of Android or Windows have in recent years become notorious for the conspicuously prominent paid placement of their products, the return on investment from such deals does not appear to be very high.
Despite regular appearances in movies, Nokia and Sony have essentially vanished from the consumer market in the minds of most consumers, and Samsung's phone profits have imploded over the last two years despite billions spent on high profile marketing as Apple's iPhone expands its command as the most popular phone available.
The discussion was revealed last winter when the movie studio's emails were hacked, as noted today by Bond movie aficionado John Gruber of Daring Fireball after Financial Times writer Henry Mance discussed the role product placement plays in movies.
An earlier report by Matt Weinberger of Business Insider UK noted that Sony had initially offered Craig $5 million to carry around its Xperia Z4 phone in the movie.
Discussions involved an $18 million marketing commitment from Sony, escalating to a $50 million marketing and promotional package from Samsung as well as a $5 million product placement for Bond to be seen using an Android phone with Samsung's brand on it.
Leaked emails involving Bond franchise producer Barbara Broccoli noted that money wasn't the only consideration involved in the decision of whether to take money from Android phone makers in exchange for promotion.
James Bond only uses the 'best,' and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the 'best'
"BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby Sam and Daniel don't like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the 'best,' and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the 'best')," wrote Andrew Gumpert, President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Columbia Pictures.
Product placement in movies and TV has become a big business, and Bond films have long been a vehicle for associating some of the world's most luxurious brands with the super-spy character, from Aston Martin cars to Rolex watches. It's harder to picture James Bond using an Android phone, given both their cheap image and notoriety for suffering a litany security vulnerabilities such as Stagefright.
Apple has long offered free access to its products to a variety of movie and TV studios, resulting in decades of pictures and shows where virtually every model of Apple computer has made a big screen appearance of some sort.
While Nokia, Samsung and other commodity hardware licensees of Android or Windows have in recent years become notorious for the conspicuously prominent paid placement of their products, the return on investment from such deals does not appear to be very high.
Despite regular appearances in movies, Nokia and Sony have essentially vanished from the consumer market in the minds of most consumers, and Samsung's phone profits have imploded over the last two years despite billions spent on high profile marketing as Apple's iPhone expands its command as the most popular phone available.
Comments
And after the BMW/Sony debacle it's good to see bond back on track.
That's awesome!
I particularly like part where Apple says to product placements (I am paraphrasing), "sure go ahead and use our stuff, we won't charge you for it."
[IMG]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/64874/width/400/height/800[/IMG]
Read better ffs
Reminds me of the Rifftrax of Casino Royale.
Kevin: And so the hotel has six Blu-ray drives for their security system?
Mike: It’s a Bond film, Kevin. Anything Bond touches can’t cost less than 11,000 dollars.
Kevin: Really? His shoes? That tie? His underpants?
Mike: All high def. 11,000 bucks each.
And then later, as Bond walks to the Aston Martin.
Kevin: Ah, so that car is now worth 11,000 dollars, right?
Mike: Ooh... probably a bit more than that.
Bond wears an Omega.
What is interesting and annoying to me is the mismatch of devices and the information they display in movies and on TV. For example, I've seen Macs running Windows, PCs running Mac OSs, both devices running fake programs, and everything in between. Regarding smartphones, Dallas (2012) had a mixture of mismatched smartphones and the sounds they make. You'd hear Apple ringtones coming from non-Apple devices and vice versa. Recently, there was an episode of The Middle showing what appears to be an HP laptop running OS X. Last season, there was another episode where Frankie was laying in bed using an old Windows laptop with a 4:3 aspect ratio screen, but the video overlay was a recent version of OS X. I guess the producers generally gather up any hardware they can find and use stock video overlays without regard to what is actually correct.
That reminds me of another line. Bond’s checking in on the location of the guy in the hotel.
Mike: Sony Ericsson: Our Phones Can’t Actually Do This™
Jony Ive is Q!
You are right. I'm sure you have noticed all the TV characters seem to type into their lap tops too, you rarely see a mouse used and they manage to do things while typing that are totally impossible by just typing. It is pretty funny .. but that's show biz.