10 Most Ridiculous Pieces Of Product Placement In 2014 Films

The real genius of The Theory Of Everything? Tide laundry detergent.

Whether you love it, hate it, or (let's be honest) completely ignorant to it even existing, product placement isn't going anywhere. As costs of major motion picture production show no signs of decreasing and the general economic climate continues to worsen, studios have had to find new revenues to keep themselves a float, to keep the lights on, and to keep Roman Polanski's legal bills paid. One of those innovative new cash flows is product placement. Before you were most likely to come across it in the Bond films, with the producers looking to get some kickback from the various tailors, car manufacturers and booze merchants that 007 indulges in in Ian Fleming's books. Bond is still the biggest proponent of the practice - often taking it to ludicrous extremes - but the rest of the industry has woken up to his valuable little scam, too. In fact, it's gotten so widespread that there's now an award ceremony for the best product placement in a given year. And you know how much Hollywood likes a good award ceremony. Apparently last year was a banner one for awkwardly inserting shout-outs to real-life goods you're encouraged to buy on the way home from the theatre. Which is to say: there was a lot of really bad, unsubtle hawking going on. Here are the ten most ridiculous pieces of product placement in 2014 movies.
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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/