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First came product placement . In exchange for a payment, whether in cash, supplies or services, a TV show or a film would prominently display a brand-name product.
Then there was virtual product placement. Products or logos would be inserted into a show during editing, thanks to computer-generated imagery.
Now, with the rise of Netflix and other streaming platforms, the practice of working brands into shows and films is likely to get more sophisticated. In the near future, according to marketing executives who have had discussions with streaming companies, the products that appear on screen may depend on who is watching.
In other words, a viewer known to be a whiskey drinker could see a billboard for a liquor brand in the background of a scene, while a teetotaler watching the same scene might see a billboard for a fizzy water company.
Streaming services could also drop in brand-name products based on when a show is being watched. Someone who watches a streaming show in the morning could see a carton of orange juice within a character’s reach, while a different viewer watching the same thing in the afternoon could see a can of soda.
Show all 40 1 /40The 40 best films of the decade The 40 best films of the decade 40. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood A helter-skelter ride of a movie, satirical, very witty and showing its director’s immense affection for the B-movie actors, stunt men and hangers on who make up its cast. It’s also a tribute to Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Who would have believed that a film set just as the Sixties in LA turned sour could be so uplifting? Geoffrey Macnab
Sony/Columbia/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 39. The Master The world isn’t scared enough of Scientology, but perhaps it would be if enough people had seen The Master. Paul Thomas Anderson depicts (a fictionalised version of) the cult as a trap for bruised masculinity. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix contort themselves into primitive creatures of greed and desire. It’s an ugly film, in the very best sense of the word. Clarisse Loughrey
Snap Stills/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 38. The Irishman Scorsese summons all his sad captains for one last reunion in his magisterial gangster epic. De Niro, Pesci, Keitel and (newcomer) Pacino are all cast in a film as much about friendship, memory and betrayal as it is about corruption in the Teamster union or Mafia violence. GM
Netflix via AP
The 40 best films of the decade 37. Inside Out This is Pixar’s boldest and strangest animated feature. It takes us deep inside the mind of its heroine, 11-year-old Riley, where her unconscious is shown as akin to a magical theme park; emotions like Joy and Sadness feature as characters. Director Pete Docter deals with complex subject matter in a lithe and inventive way, and without too many Freudian hang ups. GM
Moviestore/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 36. Shoplifters Hirokazu Kore-eda is like the Charles Dickens of contemporary Japanese cinema. He tells melodramatic family stories which would seem mawkish if they weren’t so brilliantly observed. Winner of the Palme D’Or in Cannes, this is one of his very best movies – a heart-tugging story about impoverished members of a makeshift family doing everything they can to survive. GM
Thunderbird Releasing
The 40 best films of the decade 35. Dogtooth Dogtooth is a grim tale of isolation, incest, cat murder and DIY dentistry. But Yorgos Lanthimos has a hidden superpower up his sleeve: the more off-putting his films, the more you get drawn in. His work breeds curiosity. We want to solve the mystery of these strange worlds and their cold, inscrutable characters. The fact that there are no answers keeps us coming back for more. GM
Feelgood Entertainment
The 40 best films of the decade 34. Edge of Seventeen Kelly Fremon Craig’s gorgeous if cruelly unrecognised The Edge of Seventeen is deliberately small in plot, with Hailee Steinfeld playing a grumpy teen horrified to discover her best friend is dating her older brother. But it is told with heartwarming urgency, reflective of the heightened, dizzying drama of merely being a teenager.
Moviestore/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 33. A Quiet Passion Reclusive New England poet Emily Dickinson, who published only a handful of poems during her lifetime, is brought to life in vivid fashion by actress Cynthia Nixon in Terence Davies’s biopic. She may look like a spinster aunt but Nixon shows us her passion, mischief and her eccentric brilliance.
Music Box Films
The 40 best films of the decade 32. Frances Ha Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha is the definitive film about the quarter-life crisis, largely because it embraces the messiness of it all. We get the ups and the downs. We get the poorly-planned trip to Paris made by a young woman desperate to experience something profound. It’s a film without many dramatic conflicts, but marked by a gentle push towards accepting the inevitability of change.
IFC Films
The 40 best films of the decade 31. The Revenant Famous for its scene of Leonardo Di Caprio being mauled by a bear, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s western is part survival drama, part revenge movie. It’s a wilderness tale on the very grandest scale. From the opening massacre to the snowbound denouement, it if full of moments that startle you with their violence and their beauty. GM
20th Century Fox
The 40 best films of the decade 30. Boyhood Shot over 12 years, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is the ultimate coming-of-age movie. It follows main character Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from when he is seven years old until he is a young adult. It’s a testament to the patience and ingenuity of Linklater and to the exceptional work of his cast (including Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke) that the film never feels phoney. GM
Sundance Institute
The 40 best films of the decade 29. Hereditary The horrors of Ari Aster’s occult contraption are matched only by the sheer volume of ideas crammed into it. A devastating kaleidoscope of stark images, mischievous easter eggs and pure, guttural horror, Hereditary asks a staggering amount of star Toni Collette, who wails and groans and weeps, as if conveying a full-body demolition in painful slow-motion. It is a performance for the ages in one of the best films in recent memory.
A24
The 40 best films of the decade 28. Melancholia Kirsten Dunst is remarkable as a bride in the grips of mental illness shortly before the world ends. She conveys like few before her the surging apathy and bottomless self-loathing of depression, where everything, be it food or otherwise, tastes like ashes. The film that surrounds her is equally awe-inducing, distilling with grim elegance all of Lars von Trier’s polarising genius. AW
Canal+
The 40 best films of the decade 27. Selma Selma is a masterclass in the historical biopic. Presenting a crucial moment in Martin Luther King Jr’s life without dramatic embellishment or emotional manipulation, it lets his legacy speak for itself, as Ava DuVernay wields her camera like a weapon of truth. Unabashedly political in its approach, Selma speaks plainly to the fact that society cannot pave its future without first understanding its past. CL
Paramount/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 26. Boy Taika Waititi’s films always end with the feeling that things will work themselves out. It’s not blind optimism, but something far more comforting – he believes deeply in people’s ability to weather even the worst of storms. This is most apparent in Boy, still his best film to date, which catalogues a young Maori boy’s dawning realisation that his absent father isn’t the hero he imagines him to be. CL
Transmission Films
The 40 best films of the decade 25. Dunkirk British stoicism and grace under-fire are foregrounded in Christopher Nolan’s epic film about the Dunkirk evacuations. Nolan has a Cecil B De Mille-like genius for orchestrating crowd scenes and working with huge ensemble casts. He combines spectacle with very intimate moments that show the quiet desperation of the soldiers stranded on a French beach with little chance of escape.
Warner Bros
The 40 best films of the decade 24. Her Her felt almost uncomfortably relevant upon its release in 2013, and even more so today. Not because it shows people falling in love with artificially intelligent operating systems voiced by Scarlett Johansson, which hasn’t exactly caught on (...yet), but for what it said about modern loneliness. It is a sparse, oddly human film, Joaquin Phoenix finding solace and romantic fulfilment in sparkly new technology, before everything falls apart. AW
Warner Bros
The 40 best films of the decade 23. Call Me by Your Name Luca Guadagnino’s wonderfully evocative coming-of-age drama, set over a long, lazy Italian summer sometime in the 1980s, is notable for its frank but delicately observed account of the love affair between the precocious adolescent Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and the American academic, Oliver (Armie Hammer), who becomes part of the household. GM
Warner Bros
The 40 best films of the decade 22. Anomalisa It may be animated but few live-action films have captured middle-aged male angst and disillusionment as well as Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa. David Thewlis’s exceptional voice work brings an extra, sardonic edge to its portrayal of the businessman on a work trip to Cincinnati. Kaufman captures the man’s vulnerability, boredom and creeping disappointment about the course his life has taken. GM
Paramount Pictures
The 40 best films of the decade 21. The Social Network Described upon release as a lightly fictionalised account of the birth of Facebook, and as “hurtful” by Mark Zuckerberg himself, The Social Network was always spectacular, but its lessons have only deepened with time. It now resembles a terrifying warning about privacy, power, misogyny and the dangers of the internet, brought to life by David Fincher’s irresistibly cool direction, a characteristically snappy script by Aaron Sorkin and the dreamy, pulsating score by the now-ubiquitous Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It remains the most important film of the decade. AW
Columbia
The 40 best films of the decade 20. Black Swan It’s important to occasionally remind yourself that Black Swan, a bonkers, uncompromising and horrifying ballet thriller, somehow grossed $329m at the box office. But even removed from its staggering financial success, Darren Aronofsky’s psychological creepshow is a creative triumph. Part Showgirls, part Polanski and all Perfect Blue, it flirts with camp, Cronenbergian body horror and shaky-cam intimacy, with the deservedly Oscar-winning Natalie Portman as the twirling, crumbling creature at its centre. AW
Moviestore/Shutterstock
The 40 best films of the decade 19. Roma Roma takes two stories – one heartwrenching and intimate, the other sweeping and political – and weaves them together so delicately that they become one. It’s a tribute to the domestic worker who director Alfonso Cuarón says raised him. But it’s also the story of Mexico’s history, as seen through the perspective of those who have, for so long, been left voiceless. This is Cuarón’s masterpiece. CL
Carlos Somonte
The 40 best films of the decade 18. The Act of Killing It feels remarkable, given how easy it is to turn away from evil, that The Act of Killing exists at all. Not only did Joshua Oppenheimer choose one of the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide as his subject of his documentary, but he had him confront his own crimes through a series of cinematic reenactments. It is profoundly disturbing to watch. CL
Dogwoof
The 40 best films of the decade 17. Stoker Park Chan-Wook’s twisted homage to Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt may be filled with beautiful things, but they’re laced with venom. When India (Mia Wasikowska) receives a visit from her enigmatic Uncle Charlie, she discovers they share a perverse kinship. Are they the same soul in two different bodies, or are they merely bound together by the stench of death that follows them wherever they go? CL
Rex Features
The 40 best films of the decade 16. The Selfish Giant Like Ken Loach’s Kes, Clio Barnard’s Bradford-set tale, very loosely inspired by the Oscar Wilde story, combines lyricism with polemic. It captures brilliantly the mischief and resourcefulness of its two young protagonists (teenage kids excluded from school) while laying bare the brutality of the society in which they and their families are cast adrift. GM
Rex Features
The 40 best films of the decade 15. Son of Saul In 'Son of Saul' Geza Rohrig plays a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner tasked with the extermination of his fellow Jews
Sony Pictures Entertainment
The 40 best films of the decade 14. Lady Bird Lady Bird – and its story of a frustrated teen (Saoirse Ronan) trapped in Sacramento, California – is deeply attuned to how we relate to memory. It’s less about particular events than the emotions they create: a flash of adolescent alienation, a tearful goodbye at the airport, or the sensation of seeing a familiar place through new eyes.
A24
The 40 best films of the decade 13. The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson’s kitsch yarn, largely set in a luxurious spa hotel just before the Second World War, is an elegy for a lost world. Whether it’s Alexandre Desplat’s music, the eye-popping colours or the mannered but brilliant performances, all the elements here are perfectly judged. A film that could easily have seemed flimsy and conceited is instead utterly enrapturing. GM
Moviestore/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 12. 12 Years a Slave Steve McQueen’s harrowing period drama confronts audiences with the reality of slavery. Racist white owners treat their slaves as if they’re livestock, not human beings. Chiwetel Ejiofor excels as Solomon Northup, the free man sold into slavery. The film has a furious polemical charge but also works as a terrifying Kafkaesque drama about a man who falls off the face of the world. GM
Lionsgate
The 40 best films of the decade 11. Under the Skin Scarlett Johansson tucking nervously into a slice of chocolate cake becomes one of cinema’s most humane and bittersweet moments courtesy of filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, whose once-in-a-blue-moon film projects have produced a trilogy of sinister classics. Like Sexy Beast and Birth before it, Under the Skin is a wild, beautiful pleasure, as haunting as it is tender and serenaded by a spindly, disquieting score by Mica Levi. AW
Filmnation/Rex
The 40 best films of the decade 10. 20th Century Women 20th Century Women is a small-scale comedy drama with the power of something bigger. A tapestry of restless lives figuring things out, it is about family, longing and feeling out of place. At its heart is Annette Bening, heartbreakingly empathetic as a woman out of time – too old for youthful bohemia and too young for her stuffy peers, and determined to raise her teenage son to be enlightened and brilliant. Rare is a fictional world so peacefully captivating.
A24
The 40 best films of the decade 9. You Were Never Really Here Cinema is often at its most triumphant when it’s used as a tool for empathy, letting us climb into someone else’s brain and experience things that feel miles away from our own reality. That’s the revelatory power of Lynne Ramsay’s portrait of a PTSD-suffering vigilante, brought to life with incredible vulnerability by Joaquin Phoenix.
Amazon Studios
The 40 best films of the decade 8. Mad Max: Fury Road In a recent interview, Parasite director Bong Joon-ho revealed that he’d shed a tear while watching George Miller’s unexpected return to the Mad Max franchise. He called it “something we cannot describe with our words: all we can do is just cry”. He’s right. Fury Road is, essentially, a feature-length car chase – but it’s hard to put into words how epic and symphonic it truly is. CL
Warner Bros
The 40 best films of the decade 7. Paddington 2 A soothing balm for all of our socio-political ills, Paddington 2 is the film we needed more than any other this decade. There are numerous delights here, from the majesty of Paul King and Simon Farnaby’s script and its elaborate sleights of hand, to a moustache-twirling Hugh Grant at his most magnificent. But more than anything, Paddington 2 is about the healing power of community and family, a message conveyed with wholesome warmth and pluck by the achingly sweet bear of the title. Michael Bond would be proud.
The 40 best films of the decade 6. American Honey It took a woman from Dartford to capture the sprawling, stirring power of the American road and all that it promises. Of all the decade’s films, Andrea Arnold’s American Honey feels the most hungry to exist independently on its own, ignoring the rules of storytelling and bursting at the seams with wildness and colour. Sasha Lane – who had never acted before she was spotted by Arnold on a beach during spring break – plays working-class teenager Star, who yearns for a greater purpose and hitches a ride with a truckful of kids as adrift as she is. AW
Universal Pictures
The 40 best films of the decade 5. Inside Llewyn Davis Inside Llewyn Davis is a kind of anti-Odyssey. In its story of a folk singer (Oscar Isaac) who hops from couch to couch, with no direction and few prospects, Llewyn becomes the weary Greek hero who not only struggles to find a way home, but realises he may not have a home to go to. It’s a deeply melancholic work.
CBS Films
The 40 best films of the decade 4. Phantom Thread Phantom Thread is a love story in a funhouse mirror – fizzy and feather-light, but with a barbed and kinky underbelly that could only have come from the mind of Paul Thomas Anderson. The bewitching duo of Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps play a fashion designer and his muse, who unearth new means to sustain their marriage. Anderson lingers over objects of beauty throughout – the lines of a fabric, the mess of a breakfast table, the colourful residue left over after the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. Apparently Day-Lewis’ final film, but what a blissful way to go out. AW
Universal Pictures
The 40 best films of the decade 3. Get Out Get Out sunk its teeth into culture in 2017, and hasn’t stopped biting. Jordan Peele’s horror satire is a polished, spooky and supremely well-executed chiller, but works even better as a deconstruction of race. In its sights are peak white centrism, the burdens and expectations of being black in America, and the untruths of the post-racial utopia many were fooled into embracing in the Obama era. No other film has reflected society in the 21st century more succinctly. AW
Universal Pictures
The 40 best films of the decade 2. Carol A magical reprieve from much of the queer romance canon, Carol is neither tragic nor sexually neutered, and is rich with snowy, expensive opulence. Todd Haynes’s 2015 masterpiece plays like a fairytale, kick-started by a misplaced pair of gloves, with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara acting on feelings that were considered unacceptable at the time. Deeply romantic, sexy and dramatic, it takes everything Haynes perfected in his Douglas Sirk-inspired drama Far from Heaven (2002), and maximises it.
The 40 best films of the decade 1. Moonlight Barry Jenkins is destined to be one of the most important cinematic voices of the era. Moonlight is ample proof of that: there are very few debuts that feel this transportive, that fill the screen with this much raw beauty and human vulnerability. The director knows the power of gesture, and so the film’s emotional weight rests on a few shared glances, or one hand placed gently on another. In the intersection between race, sexuality and class, it crafts tender poetry. CL
David Bornfriend/Kobal/Rex
It could start within a year, said Stephan Beringer, chief executive of Mirriad, a virtual product placement company that has worked brands including Pepsi , Geico and Sherwin-Williams into ABC’s Modern Family , CBS’ How I Met Your Mother and the Univision program El Dragon .
Streaming services are more likely than traditional TV companies to pull off this specially targeted version of product placement because they have direct access to far more information on their customers. With every click of the remote, viewers tell the services something about themselves, information that can be used to determine which products might appeal to them.
This supercharged version of digital product placement is being developed at a time when the marketing business — which bet big on TV commercials for decades — needs new tricks to grab the attention of ad-hating cord-cutters.
Beringer, the head of Mirriad, said the current digital product placement technology has been successful enough to suggest that a bespoke version is a logical next step.
“Viewers have been educated to look away from advertising,” he said. “But we’re putting something in that contextually makes sense. If you do it well, and it’s not annoying, it can work.”
Through digital video services like Hulu and YouTube , companies are already able to target viewers based on information about their ages, their locations, where they like to shop and other details. Some of the data is collected by the platforms themselves, others by outside data companies. And now streaming services are mulling how to make use of that information to create tailored product placements.
“Just like there’s no reason that all viewers of a program need to see the same advertisement, there’s no reason that they all need see the same brand integration or crossover campaign,” said David Schweidel, a marketing professor at Emory University.
Streaming platforms are trying out other advertising innovations, too. Hulu, a platform controlled by the Walt Disney Company, has ads that appear when a viewer hits the pause button. Last week, it rolled out specialised ads for people who are bingeing on three or more episodes of a show, with commercials for Kellogg’s, Maker’s Mark and Georgia-Pacific.
This year, Walmart-owned streaming service Vudu enabled so-called shoppable ads on internet-connected televisions. With a click of the remote on the words “Add to Cart,” customers are able to drop an advertised product into their Walmart.com queue.
On the Roku Channel, a streaming channel on the company’s digital media player, viewers can click on certain commercials to request an email or text with details about the product on display. Roku, which spent $150m (£115m) this fall buying software provider Dataxu to help companies plan and buy ad campaigns, then shares insights about the audience with the company behind the ad.
Film mistakes Batman (1989) The Tim Burton-directed superhero film has multiple mistakes, but a major one happens in the scene when Joker and his crew deface paintings at a museum. One of his gang members slaps a painting with his hands that are covered in red paint, but in the next shot, the handprints have disappeared from the artwork.
Film mistakes Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019) Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, flies back to Hollywood on a Boeing 747. But it would have been a 707. The film was set in 1969 and the 747 went into service in January 1970.
Film mistakes The Graduate (1967) Dustin Hoffman’s character drives in the wrong direction across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco on his way to Berkeley, California. He is travelling on the top deck of the bridge for traffic going from California to San Francisco.
Embassy Pictures
Film mistakes Pretty Woman (1990) There is a continuity issue at breakfast when Julia Roberts’s character takes a bite out of a croissant. She’s in the hotel room with her co-star Richard Gere, but when the camera pans back to her, it transforms into a pancake. Then when she takes a second bite out of the pancake, there is only one bite mark in it.
Rex
Film mistakes North by Northwest (1959) One of the children playing an extra in Alfred Hitchcock’s film covers his ears a few seconds before Eva Marie Saint’s character unexpectedly fires a gun at Cary Grant’s character in the Mount Rushmore cafeteria.
MGM
Film mistakes Pulp Fiction (1994) Bullet holes can be seen in the walls of the apartment where John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson’s characters go to get a briefcase, but it’s before the shoot-out has happened.
Miramax
Film mistakes Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) John Connors Cessna’s plane numbers keep changing in the film. When he is in the hanger on the runway it is N3035C, but once it’s flying, the numbers change to N3413F.
Warner Bros.
Film mistakes The Wizard of Oz (1939) Judy Garland isn’t wearing her iconic ruby red slippers in the scene where the trees pelt Dorothy and the Scarecrow with apples. Instead, she can be seen wearing plain black shoes.
Alamy
Film mistakes American Sniper (2015) The baby that Bradley Cooper holds while adapting to civilian life after the Iraqi War is plastic. In fact, it looked so fake, even he admitted it was “nuts”.
Film mistakes Independence Day (1996) When computer expert David Levinson, played by Jeff Goldblum, is throwing a tantrum in the hanger housing the captured alien craft, he knocks over a bin that is labelled “Art Dept”. Clearly, a set designer left it there by mistake.
20th Century Fox
Film mistakes The Fast and the Furious (2001) In a scene when Jesse and Tran race, Tran is wearing a shirt with sleeves, but in the next shot he’s in a tank top. Didn’t anybody notice when they edited it?
Universal Pictures
Film mistakes Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011) We were always told that Harry Potter had his mother’s blue eyes. But when we see Lily Potter as a child, she has brown eyes.
Warner Bros.
Film mistakes Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) As a group of stormtroopers enter a control room, one of them accidentally bangs his head on a door. The actor responsible, Laurie Good, couldn’t believe it made it into the final film.
Film mistakes Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) There is a crew member wearing a cowboy hat and looking out to sea behind Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow on the pirate ship.
Disney
Film mistakes Quantum of Solace (2008) A street cleaner behind Daniel Craig’s James Bond is pretending to sweep the road but is holding his broom several inches off the ground.
Sony
Film mistakes 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) When Bianca accidentally shoots a gym teacher with an arrow, an extra, who is playing a student, runs off to get urgent help – but once she thinks she is out of shot, she stops and looks back at the camera.
Buena Vista Pictures
Film mistakes Braveheart (1995) There is a modern car in the background of a big battle scene. Considering the film is set in the 13th century, it’s hard to imagine how it stayed in the final cut.
20th Century Fox
Film mistakes Django Unchained (2012) Leonardo DiCaprio accidentally cut his hand while filming a scene in which he slams his hand on the table and breaks a glass. But rather than shout “cut”, he carried on in character. Tarantino liked it so much that he kept it in the film.
TWC
Film mistakes Captain Marvel (2019) Many of the mistakes are related to the film’s 1990s time period. These include computers using a wrongly dated version of Windows and Carol Danvers’s memories being jogged by a Nirvana song that wasn’t out until after she left Earth.
AP
Film mistakes Spider-Man (2002) Toby McGuire’s Spider-Man saves Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane from a group of attackers. He throws them through a set of windows before he kisses her upside down in the rain. But during their romantic embrace, the windows behind her are perfectly intact.
Rex
Film mistakes Blade Runner (1982) As Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) dies one rainy evening, he releases a dove into a clear, blue sky. It is a lovely symbolic act but slightly dampened by this continuity error. Ridley Scott finally fixed this and other mistakes with his 2007 Final Cut.
Film mistakes Halloween (1978) John Carpenter’s slasher film starring Jamie Lee Curtis was set in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, but all the cars have Californian number plates and there are shots of palm trees, as the film was shot in Southern California.
Film mistakes The Goonies (1985) At the end of the cult film, Data tells news reporters that the octopus was really scary, but this actually refers to a deleted scene. It was only added back in for the Disney Channel version.
Rex Features
Film mistakes Avengers: Endgame (2019) Eagle-eyed fans have noted that Ant-Man can be seen in two places at once during the final battle scene – in the van, and in his giant form, fighting alongside the other Avengers.
Film mistakes The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) Merry and Pippin are captured by the Orcs at the start of the film, and Pippin is seen in handcuffs. But he doesn’t have them anymore in the fight scene. And then they reappear on his wrists a few moments later.
Rex
Film mistakes Gladiator (1999) Ridley Scott’s epic film took place many centuries before fuel-powered vehicles. But during the Battle of Carthage, a gas canister can be seen on the back of a chariot when it flips over.
Rex
Film mistakes The Dark Knight Rises (2012) There is a mix up over whether it is day or night at the beginning of the stock market heist scene in Christopher Nolan’s film. It is clearly daylight, but suddenly, after the police chase, it’s pitch black.
Rex
Film mistakes Titantic (1997) When Jack (Leonardi DiCaprio) is painting a naked Rose (Kate Winslet) and tells her to go over by the bed, and then says he means the couch, it was DiCaprio flubbing his lines. But James Cameron kept it in the film because it was funny.
Rex
Film mistakes Jurassic World (2015) The blockbuster featured about 33 mistakes, including a scene in which lead actor Chris Pratt talks to co-star Bryce Dallas Howard without his mouth moving. In another scene, a phone’s broken screen suddenly appears fixed.
Rex
“Consumers are so much more empowered today to flip the dial, to change the channel, and many of the things they could switch to don’t have advertising at all,” said Scott Rosenberg, a senior vice president at Roku. “It’s incumbent on platforms and apps that are ad-supported to work harder at how they put ads in front of the consumer.”
Virtual product placement companies like Mirriad and its rival Ryff said they are talking with streaming services about using data to customize product placements to viewers. Mirriad and Ryff would not name their potential partners.
Product placement is appealing to streaming services because it allows them to work with companies without interrupting a show with commercials. Hulu, which comes in a low-cost ad-supported version and also has a commercial-free option for subscribers willing to pay more, said that so-called brand integrations on its platform have been far more effective than 30-second commercials at raising viewers’ interest in products.
Some skeptics say virtual product placements based on viewer preferences may turn out to be one of those innovations that does not catch on. A few well-placed TV commercials and billboards are likely to reach the same number of people with less trouble, said Joe Maceda, an executive at the media agency Mindshare.
“It’s hard to know if the juice is worth the squeeze,” he said.
The possibilities of individualised product placement were on display in Bandersnatch , an extended installment of the Netflix series Black Mirror
Bandersnatch was interactive. Viewers determined how the story, set in 1980s Britain, unfolded by clicking on choices presented to them at various forks in the narrative road. Early on, the film asked viewers to choose between two breakfast cereals, Sugar Puffs or Frosties. Their selection determined which one would appear in a commercial shown on a TV set in the background of a scene later in the film.
Sugar Puffs and Frosties were not included as part of an ad, Netflix said, but rather as a way for the Black Mirror creators to enhance the film’s 1980s setting. Netflix was not paid by the cereal companies.
But all those remotes clicking on one cereal or the other provided Netflix with data on its subscribers’ preferences. Reed Hastings, Netflix chief executive, cited Bandersnatch during a webcast timed to an earnings report this year. Holding up two boxes of cereal, he announced that 73 per cent of Bandersnatch viewers had selected Kellogg’s Frosties.
The other executives on the webcast chuckled.
“The most critical data point of the quarter!” joked Spencer Wang, a vice president.
Netflix, which does not run commercials, said it would not use the information it had gleaned from Bandersnatch , saying in a statement that “the privacy of our members is a top priority.”
But marketing executives like Ricky Ray Butler, chief executive of product placement company Branded Entertainment Network, are enthusiastic about the possibility of inserting brand-name products into streaming shows based on data generated by interactive programming. Actually being able to do so, he said, may still be a long way off.
“The world’s not ready for it yet,” he said. “We’re just at the tip of the iceberg.”
The New York Times
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