Movie integrations pose a unique challenge for automakers, particularly if they want to see new models featured in them. It usually takes a year or more to film and edit a major motion picture and carmakers that want their vehicle's film debut to coincide with its actual launch often have to hand-build mock-ups for the films.
That can be a very expensive, but it also pays big dividends as GM found out with the sci-fi hit "The Matrix Reloaded."
That film's chase sequence became a showcase for two new Cadillac models that were set to hit the showroom floor just as the film was arriving in theaters.
GM provided the production crew with about 100 vehicles -- including 64 that were destroyed in that chase sequence. It also hand-built mock-ups of the Cadillac CTS and EXT two years before they went into production. In exchange, GM not only got those vehicles featured in the film, but also got prerelease footage of the vehicles in action to use in its own advertising.
When movie product placement works, the results can be phenomenal. In 1996, Chrysler managed to get its new Dodge Ram pickup cast as an indestructible research vehicle in the tornado-thriller "Twister."
"It literally wound up being a two-hour Dodge commercial," Hadler said. "And it didn't cost us one red cent."
Meanwhile, automakers are making their own calculations, and the competition is intense.
That is particularly true when big stars are involved. There are few bigger today than Tom Cruise, so it is hardly surprising that both Ford and GM lobbied long and hard to get their vehicles cast alongside him in the upcoming film, "Mission: Impossible III."
"Cruise is very much involved in any film he's working on," Tihanyi said. "He has a lot of power."
GM pitched their products directly to the star, but Cruise was unimpressed. "He didn't think what we wanted to do would work creatively in the film," Tihanyi said.
Ford had better luck.
Ford family member Alessandro Uzielli, who heads the automaker's Beverly Hills office, had introduced Cruise to his cousin, Bill Ford Jr., during a Hollywood visit. And that, as they say in the movies, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
That can be a very expensive, but it also pays big dividends as GM found out with the sci-fi hit "The Matrix Reloaded."
That film's chase sequence became a showcase for two new Cadillac models that were set to hit the showroom floor just as the film was arriving in theaters.
GM provided the production crew with about 100 vehicles -- including 64 that were destroyed in that chase sequence. It also hand-built mock-ups of the Cadillac CTS and EXT two years before they went into production. In exchange, GM not only got those vehicles featured in the film, but also got prerelease footage of the vehicles in action to use in its own advertising.
When movie product placement works, the results can be phenomenal. In 1996, Chrysler managed to get its new Dodge Ram pickup cast as an indestructible research vehicle in the tornado-thriller "Twister."
"It literally wound up being a two-hour Dodge commercial," Hadler said. "And it didn't cost us one red cent."
Meanwhile, automakers are making their own calculations, and the competition is intense.
That is particularly true when big stars are involved. There are few bigger today than Tom Cruise, so it is hardly surprising that both Ford and GM lobbied long and hard to get their vehicles cast alongside him in the upcoming film, "Mission: Impossible III."
"Cruise is very much involved in any film he's working on," Tihanyi said. "He has a lot of power."
GM pitched their products directly to the star, but Cruise was unimpressed. "He didn't think what we wanted to do would work creatively in the film," Tihanyi said.
Ford had better luck.
Ford family member Alessandro Uzielli, who heads the automaker's Beverly Hills office, had introduced Cruise to his cousin, Bill Ford Jr., during a Hollywood visit. And that, as they say in the movies, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.