Just when it seemed like there was no way to top the music industry using holograms of dead musicians to make money and outrage fandoms, Hollywood does a “hold my beer” moment as they’re is looking to inject advertising in classic movies.
Like many industries over the last year, Hollywood has lost a ton of money. Sure, a lot of it is their own fault, but things like the pandemic shutting down theaters couldn’t be helped.
So, when in need of cash some buckle down and work harder to find a way around it while others look to rewrite history to fit in some advertising.
Hollywood to Inject Advertising in Classic Movies
To be fair, product placement is as old as the movie industry itself. According to BBC.com, it goes all the way back to Buster Keaton’s 1919 movie “The Garage” where logos of gasoline and motor oil companies were shown.
The changes being proposed could be a mild as changing wine or champagne labels in a bar scene or putting a banner over what was a ruined, hole covered wall for toilet paper in a war film.
New technology
Clownfish TV points out a few previous instances where such things were met with backlash, but it appeared we may be heading in this direction regardless.
The UK advertising company Mirriad is one of the first to develop this technology, and according to bbc.com linked above, the company’s chief executive Stephan Beringer thinks such placement will become regular in the future.
From BBC.com, Stephan Beringer said, “We started out working in movies. Our chief scientist Philip McLauchlan, with his team, came up with the technology that won an Academy Award for the film Black Swan.
“The technology can ‘read’ an image, it understands the depth, the motion, the fabric, anything. So you can introduce new images that basically the human eye does not realise has been done after the fact, after the production.”
How far will it go?
While we doubt many will object to this given how much we have embraced streaming technology, it’s a safe bet that DVD and Blue Rey sales could see a significant bump as those of us that don’t want more advertising thrown at us build up our libraries of unaltered shows and movies.
Things could get interesting in the next few months as this is rolled out, and with the backlash Hollywood has already been dealing with will only make it more intriguing.
Do you agree with Hollywood injecting advertising in classic movies and shows? Let us know in the comments below and don’t be shy.
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