Monday, January 11, 1999
Product placement goes awry in Disney’s latest controversial
film
MOVIE: Based on a true story, ‘A Civil Action’ shows not all
businesses profit from exposure on big screen
By Bernard Weinraub
The New York Times
Most of the time, companies fight for prominent placement in
major movies. For example, Tommy Hilfiger – the hip clothing line –
spent $10 million on a promotion campaign for "The Faculty," a
Miramax/Dimension film for Disney about high school students
(dressed in Hilfiger) who battle alien invaders.
By contrast, a new Disney film, "A Civil Action," may be the
ultimate in reverse product placement.
In a rare movie industry moment, two giant corporations get
prominent on-screen exposure as the major villains in the real-life
story of the pollution of a New England town’s water supply and the
labyrinthine lawsuit by eight families accusing the companies of
dumping chemicals which they alleged caused leukemia and led to
eight deaths, including those of several children.
One of the companies, W.R. Grace, reacted strongly to the film,
kicking off a behind-the-scenes struggle over its portrayal during
the making of the movie, even setting up its own Web site in
November, www.civil-action.com. The other, Beatrice Foods, was
largely broken up in the 1980s, and its subsidiaries were sold off.
But at one point in the film, actor John Travolta lists some former
Beatrice brands that are commonplace in millions of U.S.
households: Peter Pan peanut butter, Tropicana orange juice,
Rosarita Mexican food, Swiss Miss cocoa, Samsonite luggage, Playtex
bras and Culligan water systems.
Even as the film was being made, W.R. Grace was sending letters
and faxes to Disney lawyers expressing concern that the movie would
repeat what Grace said were inaccuracies in the best-selling book
by Jonathan Harr on which the film was based. The movie, like the
book, is set in the 1980s and focuses on the obsessive legal
efforts of a personal-injury lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann (Travolta),
on behalf of eight families in Woburn, Mass., against the two
corporations. Schlichtmann loses virtually all he has in defending
the families.
The film opened last month in New York and Los Angeles to
generally positive reviews and reached theaters around the nation
on Friday. It was No. 1 at the box office and took in an estimated
$15.5 million.
Implicit in the exchanges, said one person involved in the
making of the film, was Grace’s hope to apply enough pressure on
Disney to fictionalize the name of the company in the movie. Disney
refused to make any changes.
Grace has conceded making errors in its handling of the Woburn
case, but it points proudly to its environmental record in recent
years. Harr and the studio said they had never heard from anyone
associated with Beatrice Foods or any of its components. Tropicana
Products, for example, was sold last August to Pepsico for $3.3
billion.
The seller was Seagram Co., which purchased Tropicana 11 years
ago for $1.2 billion from Beatrice.
Mark Gutsche, Tropicana’s vice president for public relations,
said it was far-fetched to link the company with the tragedy in
Woburn. "Tropicana has an excellent environmental record," Gutsche
said. Referring to the film, he said, "I think people are very
smart and realize it has nothing to do with us."
What has surprised executives and producers in Hollywood is that
Disney, one of the more conservative and traditional studios,
agreed with apparent little question to follow the book and name
Beatrice and Grace.
Movie studios, mostly owned by conglomerates like Disney, Time
Warner and Viacom, generally shy away from controversial subjects
and certainly avoid criticizing major corporations and
businesses.
"It is unusual, I guess, for a big corporation to do this,"
acknowledged Joe Roth, chairman of Walt Disney Studios.
"Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but you don’t want to throw bricks
if you live in a glass house. As a corporation, the more public you
are, the more vulnerable you feel," he said.
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