Product Placement Lawsuit Reveals Just How Craven Hollywood Has Become



Feel like they couldn't have fit one more ad into Transformers: Age of Extinction (aka Transformers 4)?

Well...

Perhaps the producers should have tried...

As Katharine Trendacosta writes for gizmodo: "Wulong Karst Tourism, a state-backed travel company, is arguing that Paramount and the Chinese co-producer of Transformers: Age of Extinction, China Movie Channel, failed to live up the obligations of a deal they had. The tourism company says it paid $750,000 for a logo with the Chinese characters for “China Wulong” to appear in the movie." And Paramount and China Movie Channel failed to deliver. 

Now a court in Chongqing city will hear the case.

For those of you who think of movies as works of art where characters experience life's most challenging questions in deeply moving ways...  and not as ad-soaked previsualization for theme park attractions (replacing what Meyerhold described as "lofty destiny" with the up-and-down gut-churning logic of roller coasters), Ms. Trendacosta's April 28th, 2016 post to Gizmodo might serve as a memorable signpost, marking just how far movies have plummeted toward a Chinese government-backed abyss.

In other words, if you bought a ticket to Transformers: Age of Extinction, and it felt to you like a race away from meaningful entertainment and into some fresh ad-infused hell... well, you might be more than a little right.

According to Ms. Trendacosta, the failure to stay on Wulong Karst's good side "turns out to be a major screwup since the people who originally paid $750,000 are now suing [the studios] for $27 million."

1 comment:

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