5 Commercials Made by Famous Directors (For Some Reason)
Selling out or buying in?
Prada by Wes Anderson
Auteur and quirk-peddler Wes Anderson’s latest movie The Grand Budapest Hotel is still in theaters, but a few months prior Anderson released this seven-minute short film sponsored by Prada. It’s almost a stretch to call it a commercial (although it’s not as if Anderson hasn’t done pure commercials before), but it’s also becoming increasingly more common to see respected directors take to the most micro form of art.
KFC by David O. Russell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA8lgEp2ePc
KFC’s most recent ad campaign, centered around horrible gluttonous people who legitimately think they ingested a full chicken wing’s worth of bones without noticing. was quietly helmed by David O. Russell. The five-time Oscar nominee decided to get into the fast food chicken game because, well, you know.
Victoria’s Secret by Michael Bay
Michael Bay took the reins on a lingerie commercial and made it look like, well, everything he’s ever done. Luckily, explosions, fires, motorcycles, and bad music all make for a welcome backdrop to beautiful ladies posing in their underwear. He even emerged with a new star for his Transformers series – former Hot 100 champ Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Nike by David Fincher
The director of Se7en and The Social Network took to the sporting (and commercial) world with “Fate,” an epic, sprawling tale of two football players – LaDainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu – bound to collide. The commercial fits into Fincher’s style, but the message is way too hopeful and inspirational for him. Although with the inevitable brain damage that football causes, there might be a fittingly depressing follow-up to it.
Clearblue by David Lynch
This one is a puzzler. The completely standard Clearblue spot that you would see during The Price is Right was directed by weirdo extraordinaire David Lynch. Lynch probably took the job as some strange protest or form of performance art, but from Clearblue’s perspective, if you are paying a guy, why not pay him to do what he does best (like Sony did)? Why they shelled out big bucks to have Lynch direct a commercial that literally anyone could have done is beyond us, but we’re just bummed out that we were robbed of a pregnancy test commercial starring Bob.
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