Can you have brands in the movie that takes place in 2044? Of course you can. Can you place so many brands that it becomes unbearable to watch? Yes, we’ve seen blatant product placement in The Island. Can you have a tremendous time travel movie with hardly any brands? Yes.

Meet Looper, a 2012 American science fiction action film written and directed by Rian Johnson. Looper is currently the only 2012 movie that received all four possible stars from my favorite movie critic James Berardinelli.

Looper takes place in 2044 in the US. The future is not very bright and optimistic. Vagrants run across America searching for food, there is a lot of violence, thieves get shot in the head in the middle of the street very easily. Some “fortunate” people have money and some of them are addicted to a dangerous drug.

Mazda Miata from Looper (2012, TriStar Pictures, screen capture)


Main character is Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is a looper for a mafia company in Kansas. I don’t want to discuss what a looper is because you have to see it for yourself :)

There are basically no brands in the whole movie; however we saw Joe driving Mazda Miata. Joe has it hidden under a tarp in a garage and we can see it in a few scenes when Joe and his friend Seth went for a ride through a city.

Mazda Miata from Looper (2012, TriStar Pictures, screen capture)


I’ve also spotted another brand. It was in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. You can see on the picture below that there’s a cooler (or something similar) with Pepsi logo on it. Yes, in 2044 Pepsi has the same logo as today.

Pepsi from Looper (2012, TriStar Pictures, screen capture)


I’ve found another photo that shows Pepsi logo evolution. There’s no way that Pepsi will let its logo unchanged until 2044.

Pepsi – Logo evolution


During the movie one interesting question came to my mind: did some companies miss the opportunity to be involved in the movie, place its products or brands and change to logo. Was Looper a movie that could be used for some logo or product testing? Just to show the fans a glimpse of what is possible or maybe show them some crazy ideas (some realistic ideas are classified, of course).

What do you think: should companies embrace opportunities that such movies can give them and prepare a creative product placement?


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