Look at the poster, and you’ll see this wasn’t just any movie. Alongside the movie release — a caper about a bunch of people trying to hunt down some hidden money — was a sweepstakes. Watch the movie, and try to use the clues to guess the fictional location of a cache of money the characters seek, and you could win a million dollars for real!
It was a promotion by Glad, the maker of Ziploc bags. Producer Dino de Laurentiis said the sweepstakes would attract “the infrequent moviegoer, the person more interested in winning a million dollars than in going to the movies, and these are the kind of people who use Glad Bags.” This characterization somehow manages to insult their customer base (by painting them as dumb lotto enthusiasts) while not saying anything distinct about them. After all, who among us wouldn’t be more interested in winning a million dollars than in going to the movies?
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
A 14-year-old won the contest. She might not have been the decision maker regarding her household’s choice of kitchen products. Thousands of entrants successfully guessed the cache location (the winner was picked randomly from them), which was probably as planned. Sweepstakes like this never aim to test skill but just want as many people participating as possible. But if the goal was to maximize participation, we’re confident they could have spent the $9 million they lost on the movie on a campaign that would have reached more people.
Oh, and one more thing: The production killed a guy. It was stuntman Dar Robinson, who’d appeared in a dozen movies including Lethal Weapon and Police Academy and held 21 world records. Stunt performers often suffer injuries, but Robinson had never broken a bone filming movies prior to this one. Here, he got on a motorcycle and soared off an embarkment, getting gored on a branch instead of falling onto a safety net.