When Wayne’s World ran with its hilarious spoofing of product placement in movies, it was almost prophetic. Today, it’s hard to look past some of the immersion-breaking product spots in major films, and there’s seemingly no end in sight.

I get it—movies cost a lot of money. However, is it ever worth compromising the viewing experience to make a few dollars? There are many ways to do product placement right, but these movies are the perfect examples of how to do it very, very wrong.

6

Alien Covenant—GoPro

I really love Alien Covenant. It might actually be my favorite film in the overall Alien mythos, but few things have taken me out of a film like seeing people in the 22nd century walking around with GoPro cameras strapped to their backpacks.

Yes, in the real world, this is the result of a collaboration with GoPro, however, that does nothing to help my sense of immersion. They have magic space suits, and antigravity hologram drone things flying around all over the place, but for some reason they need GoPro Hero cameras? It would have been much better if I simply didn’t know what a GoPro looked like, and I’m sure many people watching this were lucky enough to have never seen one before. For the rest of us, this is exactly the sort of thing to digitally remove in the special edition release of a movie.

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5

Valerian—Lexus

I like reading so-called “hard” sci-fi by authors like Peter F. Hamilton, which often features brands we know today (e.g. Rolls-Royce or Mercedes) making vehicles and other technologies in the future. So, in principle, the fact that a Lexus spaceship shows up in Valerian isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem is how it’s presented. Just look at this.

It’s not even that nice to look at, but this is a literal “L” for a movie that’s otherwise slathered in far-future alien-ness.

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4

Iron Man—Audi

For one of the richest guys in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, and someone who has a very exotic car collection, Tony Stark sure does love his Audis. It’s not just the various Audis he drives in the Iron Man movies and the rest of the MCU, when I watched the first film (which I adore) I was struck with how much I was seeing those five circles crop up in the film. At one point Iron Man even saves a family driving in an Audi family car.

I really started to resent seeing Audis so much every time Stark showed up, even Nolan’s Batman had the good sense to drive a Lambo now and then, so why does Stark leave his hot rods to rot in the basement? Because of real-world deals that sell more Audis, that’s why.

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3

Man of Steel—So. Many. Brands.

Not too long ago, I felt like watching Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, as you do. The film still holds up, weird dad situation notwithstanding, but as I was watching I had to ask myself if there was always this much product placement in this movie?

I get that Superman lives in America, and you expect to see strip malls and billboards. However, the way things are framed is so egregious. Kal-El crashes through an IHOP and fights one of Zod’s generals in front of a Sears. At every turn there seems to be some sort of brand in the frame, which is really distracting.

2

Mac And Me

There’s product placement, and there’s a movie that’s literally just a feature-length ad. Mac And Me is a notoriously poor ET ripoff that gave us this infamous scene.

I’ve seen this film described as “MacDonald’s Propaganda” and a blatant way to cash in on sentiments towards a much better movie that did wonders for Reece’s Pieces, but didn’t have a whole dance sequence set in a candy store.

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1

Transformers: Age of Extinction—Bud Light (And More)

Maybe I’m setting my standards too high by complaining about product placement in a Bayformers movie based on a series designed specifically to sell plastic toys to dumb kids (me), but I draw the line at believing seriously that Mark Wahlberg drinks Bud Light.

We’re also treated to Stanley Tucci creating a Beats By Dre speaking from thin air, and at one point a transformer crashes into an Oreo stand. I know explosions are expensive, but there are limits, Michael.

I like my product placement to be properly diagetic, or self-aware like Wayne did it. Everything else feels cheap.