Film director/writer Morgan Spurlock came to town to discuss his hilarious new Sony Pictures Classics’ film, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold , a film about the preponderance of product placement in films and TV.
Spurlock gained notoriety with his earlier film in 2004, Super Size Me, when the film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Film. He also made Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? and won great acclaim at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. We recently sat down for this interview at the Hyatt Hotel (one of the film’s sponsors) in La Jolla.
LGBT Weekly: How did you come up with the idea for the film?
Morgan Spurlock: Our film was inspired by a film I saw with Hayden Panettiere in which the product placement was so prominent that I was dumbfounded. My partner and I started talking about all the product placement in films and how it continues to get more and more pervasive.
Did the blatant use of known products in films and on TV set off a bulb of an idea for you?
We thought what if we made a film that pulled back the curtain on product placement and actually get companies to pay for it? All my partner and I did for the next two or three hours was talk about what we could do in the film, how could we do it and make it entertaining. We came up with the silliest ideas we could.
How do you plan a movie?
Whenever I start a film, I say that in a perfect world here’s how I would see the movie playing out. Everything you write down doesn’t always come to fruition. Sometimes they do. Who better to talk to than Ralph Nader, who knows what is happening in consumer culture? He’s the most famous consumer advocate. What I love about Ralph Nader is that when he did the interview for us he came walking in with stacks of books written by him about consumers.
How did the idea for the movie change from start to finish?
What changes along the way are the people that you meet and the information you get out of them. In 2004, when I was promoting Super Size Me in Sao Paulo, Brazil, it was like Las Vegas with all it’s advertising everywhere. Then they banned all advertising on the streets!
How long a gestation period has this film had?
We got the idea in January, 2009. We called every advertising agency and none of them wanted anything to do with this film. Absolutely not! The last thing they want to do is blow the lid off their core business.
Not one product placement company would help us. They would not help us to get people to put products in the film. We called 500 to 600 brands. By the time the first company came on – which was Ban – it was eight or nine months.
What happened after Ban signed on to be in the film?
Then it was like a domino effect! Nobody ever wants to be first. They don’t want to give you their blessing right off the bat. Who knew that Ban was going to be the lynchpin of this whole idea? Ban had so much power and prestige that all the other companies wanted to sign on, too.
You wanted to get oil company BP, responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf.
I called BP and told them they needed some positive press. They said they didn’t want anything to do with the movie and to stop calling them. They were afraid, afraid they wouldn’t have full control. They were scared to death of not having full control.
It makes the companies that did sign on look infinitely smarter and braver. They were willing to take the risk of giving up control.
What is the nature of advertising?
The advertising business is not a business based in honesty. The film is about the whole idea of embracing transparency and honesty. Here is a film showing honesty, and many businesses were afraid of being a part of that. We live in an age when nothing is sacred.
