19 Movies That Were Almost Ruined by Shameless Product Placement
Greedy corporations will stop at nothing to thrust their messages of consumerism upon us. They even use art as a vehicle to peddle their wares. Sometimes it means nearly defiling the art in the process. Here are 19 examples of the worst offenders of shameless product placement.
It’s a well-known cautionary tale that the Coen brothers were out of money as they neared the end of their shoot for The Big Lebowski. The bailout of their mishandled expenses would come from the winner of a bidding war between Folgers and Game Night in a Can. Thankfully, the good guys won.
Gene Wilder famously walked off the set of Blazing Saddles when the producers said he’d have to stop playing chess and start playing “Frumpy Bumpers.” He later returned after drinking 3 bottles of Blue Label. (The “Frumpy Bumpers” lost footage is rumored to be the stuff of legend)
Audrey Hepburn balked at the placement of GNIAC in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but once she held it in her hand and saw the beautiful design and compact features, she refused to let it go. The can even replaced a cat in the now-famous ending of the movie.
In the original script of Die Hard, Nakatomi Plaza was supposed to be taken over by game designer terrorists who created negative games that made people feel gross. These terrorists against humanity were thwarted by John McClane and his creative, positively wonderful can of games.
George Lucas borrowed a lot of his Star Wars mythology from Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Bunch of Games.” In this scene, Darth Vader was supposed to throw the can into the abyss below but instead he ad-libbed and gave us the famous line, “No, I can’t. At $25, it’s just too good a deal to throw away.”
Everybody knows the quote, “Life is like a can of 30 original games…you never know what you’re gonna get.” What few people realize is that it’s fun-loving Gary Sinise who insisted on playing “Bank Face” and “Sell me Something Good” every day between scenes. Tom Hanks, usually a nice guy, would just smile. Like I said, he’s usually a really nice guy.
During pre-production of Gladiator, Russell Crowe, famous for throwing things across the room, would not stop playing “High Flyers” or “Backhand Baseball.” It was actually while hosting a game night that he came up with the line, “Are you not entertained?” He also pointed at his couch and asked, “Are you not comfortable?” and to the nachos he made, “Are you not satiated?” This went on all night.
Bill Murray and Chevy Chase were famous for improvising scenes in Caddyshack. What few people know is that they give Game Night in a Can all the credit for their creative impulses. And it was the two games “Awesome Cat” and “Cannibal Chuckwagon” that inspired their lifelong nicknames for one another.
This romantic scene was almost ruined when the brass came in and said “The can stays in the picture!”
J.K. Rowling, when asked about this shot of Hermione Granger in Potions Class snorted, “I assure you there is no mention of Game Night in a Can in any of my original manuscripts.” She then went on yammering about something for 20 minutes, but we couldn’t hear her because we were still laughing about the fact that she had snorted such a long sentence.
“Gather some paper, some pens and a handful of friends…” Leon instructs young Mathilda on what you need for a successful night of GNIAC in The Professional.
When asked about Pulp Fiction and “What’s in the briefcase?” Quentin Tarantino has never shied from the subject:
“Game Night in a Can, man! It’s a bunch of results from my favorite game, ‘Creepy Peepers!”
Once asked why he needed it in every scene, Tom Cruise cagily replied, “I owe people.”
He then not-so-cagily adds “I owe a lot of people. I owe them a lot of things. I owe a lot of people a lot of things. I owe money to Barry, favors to Jason and all my happiness to Game Night in a Can. The can goes? I go.”
The can stayed.
Stephen King’s original short story was titled “Game Night in a Can and the Shawshank Redemption.” Upon seeing an early edit of the film adaptation, he called Frank Darabont and asked why the director shot so many scenes without his creative muse. Darabont reshot 90% of the film, remarking, “Sometimes you have to figuratively crawl through a tunnel of shit to come out clean on the other side.”
Stephen King was like, “SMH.”
When interviewed for this piece, Ralph Machio remarked, “What? No one interviews me!”
Then he said, “Oh, and there are two c’s in Machio — get it tight[sic].”
“It’s like Hobson’s Choice — or really no choice at all” said The Wachowskis when they were asked why Game Night in a Can featured so prominently in their Matrix franchise. “We owe those guys a lot for the inspiration we got while playing GNIAC. To leave the can out of the movie would have left it soulless.”
It’s well-documented that James Cameron hand-drew all of his own submissions for the games “Wanted Poster” and “New Head of FIFA” while shooting Titanic. Playing the games put him in such a good mood, he nearly changed the ending of the movie to one in which Jack and Rose just randomly fly off together in a car.
When people invite you over to a Game Night and you ask what games you’ll be playing, they sometimes say “The Usual Suspects.” That has nothing to do with the fact that screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie always envisioned the ‘Greatest Can of Games in the Galaxy’ as part of the iconic interrogation room scene.
Finally, as if it weren’t bad enough that these companies are ruining our films, they’re infecting our favorite celebrities. Even Adam Levine sold out to the Game Night in a Can (available on Amazon Prime. Buy one for the creative person in your life and leave a nice review because it turns out these guys aren’t so bad after all).
