Morgan Spurlock considered the first season of “Heroes” one of the greatest ever on TV.
But the second season had already disappointed him even before he watched the episode that prompted him to throw his remote at the television set.
It wasn’t so much that Hayden Panettiere’s character was handed keys to a new car by her father and the scene cut to a close-up of the vehicle’s logo.
No, it was the ensuing dialogue, which had the character excitedly celebrating the car by repeating its manufacturer and model name.
“At that point, the remote went toward the TV and the next day, I started working on a movie about product placement,” Spurlock said recently from Los Angeles.
The result, “POM Wonderful presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,” is Spurlock’s inventive nose-thumbing at the marketing industry, primarily those ubiquitous sponsorships and ads that blanket everything from college bowl games to tables in the mall food court and insinuate themselves into TV shows, movies and even concert events.
But Spurlock, 40, added a clever twist to the funding of the $1.5 million documentary: It’s entirely paid for by sponsors.
In the film, which opens May 6 at Landmark Midtown Arts Center and includes a cameo by Atlanta rapper Big Boi, Spurlock embarks on the exhausting task of finding companies to sponsor a movie that spotlights the egregiousness of product placement and…excessive sponsorships.
He’s repeatedly rebuffed – some meetings resulting in rejection are shown, other companies wouldn’t allow Spurlock’s cameras in the room – but managed to secure more than 15 sponsors for the film.
The biggest, obviously, is POM Wonderful, the beverage corporation that specializes in pomegranate juice.
The cost of title sponsorship? $1 million.
Spurlock, best known for his exploration of the fast food industry in “Super Size Me,” said he thinks one reason POM bit with big bucks was because “for a very small amount of money, they got the best placement possible.”
He now wonders if the company’s recent issues with the Federal Trade Commission might have encouraged their participation in the film.
“Maybe they did it to add a layer of integrity,” Spurlock said.
In September, the FTC issued a complaint that POM Wonderful was making unsubstantiated claims about the medical benefits of their products, such as preventing or treating heart disease and erectile dysfunction.
The concern arose during post-production of “The Greatest,” putting Spurlock in a difficult position.
“I said, do we go back and start shooting this now? I didn’t want to open a can of worms. It’s a much better conversation to have around the movie,” he said.
Spurlock, who has a documentary about Comic-Con coming this fall, is nothing if not a shameless promoter, evidenced by the multiple Ted Baker blazers he’s been wearing for any appearances related to the movie.
Festooned NASCAR-style with the logos of the movie’s sponsors, the jacket, which he jokingly (perhaps) calls part of, “the greatest suit you’ll ever wear,” has turned Spurlock into a walking billboard.
But the filmmaker’s ironic approach, while brazenly humorous, isn’t meant as a “gotcha” takedown of the advertising industry, but, rather, an eye-opening exercise for the unsuspecting.
“Where does it all end?” Spurlock said. “Have we become blind to it all because there is so much of it? Do we need to live in a world where everything is brought to you by a sponsor? Because that’s where we’re headed.”
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