December 15, 2003

NEW CORPORATE MOVIES

-The following is an excerpt from a letter from Lance Carpalsson, Director of Marketing, to the Universal Products Group Board of Directors.

    I propose that Universal Products Group look at an aggressive new way to link its film production resources to its retail product division.  The big story in corporate America and the entertainment industry this year has been the film "Pirates of the Caribbean."  In one bold stroke, executives at Disney took one of its products, a crummy, forty year old amusement park ride, and turned it into a lucrative feature film grossing over 200 million dollars and setting the table for the inevitable sequels.  Disney has developed a powerful new strategy we call "product film synergy."  They have turned corporate product into saleable entertainment, and film versions of their other products are already on the assembly line.  It is my aim to bring "film product synergy" to the Universal Products Group.  With hundreds of the consumer world's best loved products in our portfolio and a successful feature film division, the only limit to our development of similar cash cow film franchises is our imagination.  So I ask you to imagine a world where consumers will willingly pay eight dollars apiece to sit in a theater and watch what is basically a ninety minute advertisement for our product.  We in marketing have imagined just such a series of films, and attached are treatments for previews for new products/films that could be in theaters as early as Spring of 2004.

Mr. Clean:  The Movie

    The scene opens on a hut somewhere in the Middle East.  Sun and dust play through open windows. Shafts of light illuminate a group of hostages, over a dozen American men and women on their knees on the dirt floor bound and blindfolded.  Two young guards in shabby fatigues sit on either side of the doorway, bored and inattentive with AK-47s resting on their laps.  The door opens and in walks a swarthy, bearded man in fatigues wearing a fancy, gold-braided burnoose.  He carries a pistol.  He is The Colonel.

    "I have heard from headquarters," he says in heavily accented English with an evil cackle in his voice.  "You and your evil American company have come to our country uninvited.  You have looted our natural resources, you have stolen from out people, and you have left our nation a barren wasteland.  Now it is time for vengeance.  It is time to execute the first of the American capitalist infidels."  He takes out his pistol and levels it at an iron-haired , middle-aged executive in a tattered coat and tie.  "And the first to die shall be the CEO of your unclean cartel.  Prepare to die, Mr. ..."

    The terrorist's voice is cut off by a soft thudding sound.  Surprise contorts The Colonel's face as he looks down and sees a bright red blossom of blood explode on the front of his uniform.  A series of thumps sound out in the hut.  The impact of dozens of bullets make The Colonel twitch and jump like a marionette then his bloody body collapses onto the floor.  Too fast for the guards to react,a figure dressed all in white leaps through the door, a silenced machine pistol in each hand.  Two soft pops ring out, and the young guards slump lifelessly in their chairs.

    Stepping forward out of the shadows, the hero comes into focus.  He is big and muscular, sunlight glinting off his bald head, a single, large gold earring sparkling, his white pants and shirt spotlessly white.  He sets off a laser rescue beacon and the sound of choppers fills the air.  Distant gunfire rings out.

    The Narrator announces, "Bruce Willis is Mr. Clean!"

    Over a montage of action scenes of Willis dressed in white gunning down Arabs, karate chopping ninjas, and brutally beating a Korean general with a mop, we hear ...

    "After retiring from the Special Forces as the youngest and most decorated Major in Army Ranger history, Leland Strokes wanted nothing more than to return to civilian life and dedicate himself to his family's janitorial company, Clean Inc.  However, as global politics grew ever more volatile and America's corporate interests came under attack across the four corners of the world, Strokes was called back into action.  Leading a crack team of anti-terrorist troops financed by the United Capitalism Coalition, Strokes - or as his men called him, Mr. Clean - takes on any job too tough, too risky, or too dirty for America's conventional armed forces.  Now whenever the unstoppable forces of America's omnivorous corporate conglomerates come under fire, Mr. Clean is there to fight back."

    Next we see a swarthy Latino guerilla leader and his minions creeping through a rainforest preparing to detonate a bomb clamped onto a huge oil pipeline snaking through the jungle.

    Out of nowhere, Mr. Clean leaps from the underbrush carrying the largest gun you have ever seen. 

     "Not so fast, Caramanga!  This pipeline is going through and you and your eco-guerillas are going down.,"  Mr. Clean barks out as he cocks his weapon.  Bullets and blood explode across the screen, but Mr. Clean, the defender of American international economic expansion remains immaculate.   As Mr. Clean mops up the last of the resistance, The Narrator announces:

    "Win cash, prizes, or the chance for a dinner and personal screening with Bruce Willis.  Enter  the 'Mr. Clean: The Movie' sweepstakes.  Entry forms are available on twenty ounce bottles of Mr. Clean or wherever finer household cleaning products are sold."

COMING SOON -  Volume Two:  "Remember the Trojans."