Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock talks about staying uncorrupted, capitalising on the capitalists and what he hopes to prove with new project The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.
Morgan, how did you come up with the idea of a movie about product placement, fully financed by product placement?
The inciting incident for me was an episode of Heroes, which was one of my favourite shows when it first came on – I evangelised about it. Then at the beginning of season two the wheels fell off that bus so fast. There was an episode where Hayden Panettiere, the little cheerleader in the show, was coming out of school all depressed and her dad was like, ‘Oh, honey don’t be sad. Your mom and I want to do something special for your birthday. Here you go.’ He reaches in his pocket and the camera goes past the Nissan logo to him holding the keys in front of her face and she goes ‘The Rogue?! The Nissan Rogue?! I can’t believe it’s the Rogue! It’s the Rogue!’ I was sitting there going, ‘Holy s***, that just happened.’ So, I got to the office the next day and my producing partner, who had seen it, was just as livid as I was. We said, ‘It would be so great to pull the curtain back on this world of product placement and advertising and get brands to pay for it.’ The whole thing started from there.
How did the shooting proceed?
In the beginning, I said if you want to get in business with brands we should call the advertising agencies. They have the keys to the kingdom. We called every agency of merit in the United States and none of them would help us with the exception of one, Kirshenbaum Bond, who you see in the film. So I said fine, let’s call product placement companies. And not one of them wanted anything to do with this movie. Only two of them would even go on camera to talk to us. It was at that point I said, ‘Let’s start calling these people ourselves.’ I cold-called company after company: every clothing company, every car company, airline, hotel, you name it. We called over 600 companies to take part in this movie. From the minute we started cold calling in January to when the first company said yes was nine months. It took forever.
What were the reactions?
Lots of, ‘We would never work with you. Are you serious? Why would we ever want to be in business with you. We already saw what you did to that other company.’
Speaking of which, did you bother asking McDonald’s?
Of course. We called every fast food company – including McDonald’s –and none of them wanted to take part.
You basically trashed them in Super Size Me, though.
I left message after message. I was like, ‘Hey guys, it’s Morgan. Call me back. I promise it’ll be different this time. You really should call me.’ They never did, not once.
The ones that did say yes gave you quite complex contracts…
Absolutely, like 50 pages – and they all wanted final approval of how you’d see their brands in the film, and dialogue that I would have to say about their products. We pushed back on everything… for me, this kind of corruption of the content worked for the film because the film is about the corruption of content.
POM Wonderful paid you US$1 million for above-the-title rights. What’s it like as a drink?
Well, it’s probably the greatest antioxidant you’ll ever drink!
And I’m sure you’re being completely impartial.
I only drink the greatest things; I only drive the greatest cars; I only stay at the greatest hotels; I only wear the greatest shoes.
Seriously, was it difficult trying to stay uncorrupted?
Once you start making a film like this you know you aren’t going to remain uncorrupted. The one thing that enabled us to maintain any sense of integrity was the fact we got final control of the film. So while I may have been corrupted a little bit over the course of making this film, I think the fact that the final voice and vision was ours kind of negated a lot of that.
What are you hoping to prove?
I hope people ask the question, ‘Do I want to live in a world where everything’s brought to us by some sponsor?’ Because that’s where the world is going. In the US, they’re talking about selling the naming rights to parks and playgrounds. So, it won’t be long until I take my kid to the Bank of America Park, to the Mountain Dew Playground where I can push him down the Twizzler slide. It’s sad.
Watching Super Size Me had a visceral affect on me…
You and me both!
It turned me off McDonald’s for years. Are you still on the wagon?
I am. I have not eaten at McDonald’s or Burger King since March 2, 2003.
Then you made Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? (2008). How are you feeling about his death?
I’d say: You’re welcome, President Obama! He saw the film, must have known to go right to Pakistan – it all worked out.
