Netflix’s Jerry Seinfeld/Pop Tarts movie is part of a growing trend that includes ‘Blackberry,’ ‘Air,’ and ‘Flamin’ Hot.’ But can we interest you in the sagas of Segway and Chick-Fil-A?
The past several years have ushered in a wave of “brand” tales in Hollywood—films that speak to America’s prodigious capitalist ethos, just in case you forgot to look at a billboard. From Blackberry to Air to Flamin’ Hot, these films have captured the full spectrum of brand power, documenting the highs, lows, and synthetic cheeses of big business. With Marvel in a fallow period, the film industry needs a new hook, and sometimes, fodder is found by looking at a cereal box and realizing: “Yes! The drama of it all!”
This, it seems, was the case for Jerry Seinfeld, whose new film (and directorial debut) Unfrosted explores the 1960s race between Kellogg’s and Post to transition from cereal to breakfast pastries. The birth of the Pop-Tart, it turns out, is a fascinating story of innovation, greed, and sugar addiction, giving audiences the “inside scoop” (I use that phrase extremely liberally) on the boardroom meetings that birthed their favorite treat. In a cameo appearance, Jon Hamm reprises his role as Don Draper to pitch a (sexy?) Pop-Tart ad campaign, which is the kind of revisionist history I think we can all get behind.
“Unfrosted” is Jerry Seinfeld’s directorial film debut. While writing the script about the making of the Pop Tart, he rewatched “Mad Men”.
Seinfeld realized Don Draper existed around the Pop Tart invention and tapped Jon Hamm to do a cameo as the ad man.pic.twitter.com/RQJtW0moiu
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 3, 2024
If this product origin story can make it to the silver screen, what else can we look forward to? To no one’s surprise and Bernie Sanders’s chagrin, there is no shortage of ludicrous corporate sagas to be mined for movies; epic feuds, flops, and triumphs dot our country’s money-hungry history. While the quality and tone of these films may vary (Unfrosted, for instance, may as well just be a feature-length SNL parody), they’re all self-aware depictions of big businesses’ inherent absurdity.
I’d like to formally propose several other brand stories that Hollywood should explore next, ranked by a few key factors: brand belovedness (am I hearing about this product every day of my life?), characters (are the people involved “normal” or kinda, sorta questionable?), and public engagement (how easily could I spur a riot by lighting this product on fire?). This list, while nowhere near definitive, represents the best of what American capitalism has to offer: namely, a whole lot of cinematically ripe schadenfreude.
6. Segway
Title: Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’
Brand belovedness: 1/5
Kooky characters: 3/5
Public engagement: 1/5
This is the film that critics will hail as a Shakespearean tragedy; a devastating allegory for a noble dream demolished; a cautionary tale of what happens when we let George W. Bush step onto wheeled objects. Now best known as Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s vehicle of choice, the Segway hit markets in 2001 as a first-of-its-kind “human transporter,” or “HT.” Not a scooter but not not a scooter, Segway marketed itself as a revolutionary mobility tool, so much better than that old thing, “walking.”
Segway’s inventor, Dean Kamen, claimed that it “would be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy” and, in an early demo on Good Morning America, described riding one as “putting on a pair of magic sneakers.” (Quick aside: He’s wearing a full-on Canadian tuxedo during this appearance, which feels ripe with future-movie costume design potential.) In the year leading up to Segway’s launch, the Silicon Valley rumor mill had already granted it legendary status, with renowned engineer Bob Metcalfe deeming it, “more important than pantyhose … more important than the Internet.” Sometimes, a script simply writes itself. I can already picture Movie Metcalfe delivering this line among businessmen rendered silent by the brilliance of their creation, harrowed after achieving innovation matched only by nylon tights.
But alas, Segway flew too close to the sun (i.e., made a product no one really knew what to do with). In this classic rise-to-fall narrative, the company’s brief period of public admiration and awe was quickly replaced by a general apathy and, later, active ridicule. Bulky, expensive, and difficult to use, Segway HTs failed to find a market and were even banned in many parts of the country. Dean Kamen—our ill-fated protagonist—would most certainly deliver a moving monologue at this point in our Oscar-shoo-in film, rife with bruised ego and thoughtful musings on the pitfalls of human progress. The movie would also end with a dedication to Jimi Heselden, Segway’s subsequent owner, who died after riding his Segway off a cliff in 2010.
Just have Christian Bale lose some weight again, deck him out in denim, and boom—you’ve got your Kamen. Also, get ready for a certified who’s who of tech superstar cameo appearances: Jeff Bezos, Steve Wozniak, and Steve Jobs were just a few of the innovators Kamen looped in on his passion project. This ensemble of brainiac bit characters would need to be a key part of the film’s marketing campaign because—let’s face it—no one is clamoring for a movie about the awkward thing they rode on a tour of the National Mall in 2003.
The biggest development hurdle Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’ would face is certainly the fact that Segway’s entire existence feels like an engineering student’s fleeting fever dream. For this movie to work, there’d need to be some serious dedication to tongue-in-cheek drama, ideally via Segway-riding set to a climactic score and starry-eyed children glued to the TV during Kamen’s GMA appearance. “Wow, Mom, I want to ride one of those! And pretty please, can I have a denim shirt, too?”
5. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Atari Game
Title: Level Down
Brand belovedness: 4/5
Kooky characters: 3/5
Public engagement: 1/5
Fact: Everybody loves E.T., the adorable alien who occupies that special cultural niche between shriveled raisin and human toddler, and who charmed moviegoers of all ages when Steven Spielberg introduced him to the world in his 1982 blockbuster film. However, E.T. also had the misfortune of starring in an Atari video game released the same year, wherein phoning home became an endlessly frustrating task that no amount of joystick play could make joyful. Decades later, gamers the world over are still stewing with rage over a fictional alien baby.
Following E.T.’s runaway box office success, Steve Ross, CEO of Atari’s parent company, Warner Communications, leapt on Spielberg like a lioness in heat to get an IP license. His expediency paid off, and Warner received the exclusive worldwide rights to turn E.T. into coin-operated and console games. With Atari now pressured to capitalize on the film’s success as quickly as possible, game designer Howard Scott Warshaw received a measly five weeks to bring the film from concept to finished product—showing, once again, that corporate businessmen and nerdy game designers were not meant to cohabitate this planet.
Warshaw met his Christmas shopping season deadline, but the game was disastrous; critics panned it as “convoluted and inane,” “primitive,” and “dull,” calling out the particularly aggravating feature of players constantly falling down holes. In a beautiful instance of life imitating art, Atari—which massively overestimated the game’s profitability—also found itself falling down a hole, albeit a more consequential one of lost money and blemished reputation.
A cinematic retelling of this event would not only explore how money so often hampers creativity but also, more importantly, finally gift us Martin Starr in a leading film role. (He is Warshaw.) While I have yet to decide who would play Ross, I do know that this film would need a top-tier wig department to truly do justice to his epic combover/sideburn combo. Atari CEO Ray Kassar, who reportedly called the game “a dumb idea” from the get-go, would also get his moment to shine because everybody loves a good third-act “I told you so” moment.
Further, there’s an opportunity for a juicy subplot with the urban legend (recently proved true) that thousands of cartridges of the game were buried in a landfill in rural New Mexico. Just imagine a Citizen Kane–style ending, where [80-year-old spoiler alert] instead of a sled among piles of belongings, we gaze upon stacks and stacks of the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial video game against a setting desert sun. Perhaps, the original E.T. score begins to play, or maybe we’re left to just silently ponder the hubris of mankind vis-a-vis E.T.’s wrinkled little face.
4. Louboutin Vs. Yves Saint Laurent
Title: Save Our Soles
Brand belovedness: 4/5
Kooky characters: 5/5
Public engagement: 1/5
Legal dramas about murder? Tired. Legal dramas about the color of designer high heels? Call the streamers and studios, because this is the courtroom movie that will finally bridge the gap between fans of Sex and the City and A Few Good Men.
It all began in April 2011, when Louboutin (the company and the man himself) sued Yves Saint Laurent for releasing a new shoe featuring a red sole. “What’s so wrong with that?” you may (correctly) wonder, and the answer to that is: Christian Louboutin insisted that a red-soled heel was—and forever shall be—his “thing.” Yes, just as middle school girls lay claims on their schoolyard crushes, Louboutin said “mine,” and refused to let YSL steal the color red from him. Blue soles, green soles, yellow soles: these would all have been acceptable. But YSL quite literally gave itself a scarlet letter by venturing into Lou’s signature shoe territory.
The designers’ litigious brawl lasted nearly a year and a half, until U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero finally ruled in August that Louboutin’s “Red Sole Mark” was invalid as a protectable trademark. As he put it, “allowing one artist or designer to appropriate an entire [color] shade … would unduly hinder not just commerce and competition, but art as well.” Marrero, it turns out, was also a certified fashionista and designer shoe lover. Despite ultimately ruling against Louboutin, he noted in his decision that “When Hollywood starlets cross red carpets and high fashion models strut runways and heads turn and eyes drop to the celebrities’ feet, lacquered red outsoles on high-heeled, black shoes flaunt a glamorous statement that pops out at once.” Judge or poet? You decide.
After the Versace miniseries and Gucci movie of recent years, it’s only natural that Christian Louboutin should get his moment in the sun. The dude wears scarves the size of camping tents and neon-accented fedoras, so I see no reason the American moviegoing public wouldn’t fall in love with him (or, rather, love to hate him). He’s like if a Wes Anderson protagonist and a Zoolander villain had a baby, which sounds like a sure-fire recipe for box office success.
Furthermore, YSL’s CEO during this time, Belgian business maven Paul Deneve, would make for equally delightful “rich Europeans being rich” content. While he’s not necessarily the right age (or look, or anything) for this role, I would love to see Jared Leto tackle it after his equally improbable performance in House of Gucci. Give the man a wig and let him cook with an ever-shifting, quasi-Flemish accent.
3. Burger King Vs. McDonald’s
Title: Burger Wars
Brand belovedness: 5/5
Kooky characters: 2/5
Public engagement: 2/5
Forget Ronald McDonald—in the 1980s, Burger King ended up the true clown when it attempted to topple the double arches from fast food burger superstardom. In what has come to be called the “Burger Wars” by the world’s best and brightest fast food historians, this battle for Americans’ hearts was an epic demonstration of comparative advertising. Burger King, tired of playing second fiddle to golden child Mickey D’s, came hard at its rival with the belief that size does, indeed, matter.
In BK’s 1981 ad campaign, a 4-year-old Sarah Michelle Gellar delivers “a very big message for grown-ups” that McDonald’s burgers are made with 20 percent less beef than Burger King’s (cue gasps and mic drop). The ad even features a crayon drawing of the patty size discrepancy, so you know the data’s legit.
McDonald’s retaliated with a lawsuit and, more importantly, the 1984 McDLT (McDonald’s lettuce and tomato). Designed to rival BK’s iconic Whopper, the McDLT came in a two-sided styrofoam container, with bottom bun and patty on one side and top bun and condiments on the other. The magic (presumably) arose when one put sides A and B together in a moment of euphoric, burger-building bliss but—spoiler alert—the McDLT was soon discontinued (for environmental reasons, naturally). That being said, I’m certain that The Tragedy of McDLT would make for an excellent subplot in the Burger Wars major motion picture, especially if we can get Jason Alexander to recreate the commercial for it he starred in.
Other highlights of the Burger Wars included Burger King’s steadfast insistence that McDonald’s burgers were fried, whereas theirs were “juicy, real broiled beef.” (Alternate title for our hypothetical film: The Beef Starts Here.) In one TV commercial, noted burger spokeswoman Elisabeth Shue straight up suggests that “everybody from McDonald’s please leave the room” so that she can extoll the virtues of flame-broiling. Burger King’s burger-frying accusations were so relentless that, in 1982, McDonald’s actually sued the King for this “false and misleading” claim, drawing further blood when it claimed that BK reheated its burgers in the microwave. Checkmate.
Also, let me propose a heartwarming final scene for an otherwise cynical, “ugh, capitalism” kind of movie: we flash forward to 2015, when Burger King finally, gloriously, extended an olive branch to McDonald’s in the form of the McWhopper—a double-patty delight that would’ve combined the ingredients of the Whopper and the Big Mac into one super burger. Did this product ultimately come together? No, not at all, but that’s not the point. In these last few cinematic moments, let us linger on the god-ordained, hybrid-brand burger that could have been and put the beef behind us.
2. Popeyes Vs. Chick-fil-A
Title: Cluck Off
Brand belovedness: 4/5
Kooky characters: 4/5
Public engagement: 5/5
For decades, no one dared challenge Chick-fil-A, inventor of the chicken sandwich and esteemed third location of Georgia church ladies. That is until Popeyes took the streetcar named desire to sandwich town, unleashing its own fried buttermilk chicken sandwich in 2019. This behemoth of buttery brioche and thick-cut pickles originated in 2016, when Popeyes VP of culinary innovation Amy Alarcon decided the company needed a new pull, and started experimenting with her ragtag clan of “food ninjas” (her words, not mine).
Why, exactly, recipe tweaking for a chicken sandwich took nearly three years, I cannot say, but who am I to question the wisdom of a woman who’s created menu items everywhere from Church’s Texas Chicken to Arby’s to Taco effin’ Cabana? She also has a hybrid Martha Stewart/Paula Dean look, which I’m choosing to believe means she represents both women’s faults and neither’s vices. This has serio-comic Melissa McCarthy role written all over it, or maybe even Rebel Wilson; really just anyone who can capture the tenacity of a Southern test chef fighting to win hearts and stomachs across the region.
When the Popeyes sandwich debuted on August 12, 2019, Popeyes America president Felipe Athayde described it as a “cultural phenomenon” and “the iPhone of chicken sandwiches” which, like … sure, I guess. While the sandwich garnered good reviews from customers and critics alike, it didn’t reach true iPhone status until Chick-fil-A took offense that its baby was stolen by those mean ole’ Cajuns. It also didn’t help Chick-fil-A that customers who disagreed with its not-so-secret stance against gay marriage were more than happy to take their chicken money down the road to Louisiana, fast.
When, a week after the Popeyes sandwich release, Chick-fil-A tweeted “Bun + Chicken + Pickles = all the [heart] for the original,” it fired the first cannon and, unwittingly, helped catapult its competitor’s sales. (I should note that Wendy’s, too, chimed in with passive-aggressive tweets, but—let’s face it—no one orders Wendy’s chicken unless it’s the only option off the freeway exit.) Through this Twitter feud alone, Popeyes got all the press it could ever need, leading to overflowing lines at locations across the country, influencer taste-test videos, news segments, and celebrity endorsements.
By August 27, Popeyes ran fresh out of chicken sandwiches, leaving hordes of hungry, occasionally-violent customers to pace their living rooms or make the drive of shame to Chick-fil-A while waiting for new sandwich stock to arrive. I can already feel the tension in the theater when Cluck Off reaches this devastating climax, with montages of mobs climbing up Popeyes’ faux French Quarter–style balconies and stuffing Popeyes tenders into their buns from home (a practice the brand encouraged with an only semi-ironic “Bring Your Own Bun” campaign). While this film would have many a laugh and many a mouth-watering shot to horrify vegans, it would ultimately be a film about mankind’s damaging insatiability (for profit, clout, superiority, and greasy chicken). Also, voice-over by Werner Herzog.
1. Coke Vs. Pepsi
Title: New Coke
Brand belovedness: 5/5
Kooky characters: 4/5
Public engagement: 5/5
Only one corporate kerfuffle could ever top this list: a branding atrocity so egregious, so disappointing, so offensively misguided that I can liken it only to the Game of Thrones finale in the number of “what the fucks” uttered across the globe. The two words are so infamous that they, alone, could sell this movie: New Coke.
In the early 1980s, Coca-Cola got a little insecure amid archrival Pepsi’s burgeoning sales and the viral Pepsi Challenge, in which real customers completed a blind taste test of Coke and Pepsi, with the latter emerging as the preferred drink. In a sudden identity crisis of middle-school-student proportions, Coca-Cola decided it needed to change something, anything, so why not its iconic 99-year-old formula? The revised 1985 formula was billed as “bolder,” “rounder,” and “more harmonious,” which makes total sense and is not vague at all.
Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta called New Coke’s release “the surest move ever made”—a line which, in this film, would inevitably precede a cut to riots in the streets and mailboxes overflowing with hate mail at the Coke offices. Slo-mo shots of crowds pouring out their New Coke bottles in front of the company’s Atlanta headquarters. Anything that will capture the pure vitriol with which the American public reacted to the tainting of their beloved cola.
Goizueta would obviously be played by an endearingly-double-chinned Andy Garcia. As for Goizueta’s pal, Coke president and COO Donald Keough, we’re looking at either a fully chameleonic performance by Gary Oldman or a post-Argylle Bryan Cranston rebound. Basically, it all comes down to whoever can deliver Keough’s famous words, “We are not that dumb and we are not that smart” with more vigor.
Pepsi’s leadership would also feature prominently in this movie, with PepsiCo’s North American director, Roger Enrico, emerging as the sly victor in this battle. If the title of his subsequent memoir about the soda war, The Other Guy Blinked (1986), is any indication, Enrico was riding pretty damn high during this period, so we can go ahead and expect parting shots of him with a paper umbrella in his glass of Pepsi.
Holyn Thigpen is an arts and culture writer based in Brooklyn. She holds an MA in English from Trinity College Dublin and spends her free time googling Nicolas Cage.