(When adjusting for inflation for the 1988 Mac and Me and the 1982 E.T., that comes out to $26 million and $25 million respectively today.)
The two films even had a near identical budget of $13 million for Mac and Me vs.
If that wasn’t on the nose enough, the alien is also being pursued by a shady government agency. While critics of the time panned almost every aspect of the Mac and Me, the most common complaint amongst the sea of bile directed towards this cinematic monstrosity was the ludicrous amount of painfully obvious product placement it contained. Particular attention was drawn to the inexplicable amount of screen-time dedicated to both Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, which are prominently featured in almost every key scene in the entire movie.įor those who’ve not seen this cinematic classic, as noted, the film’s “plot” is an unabashed knock-off of E.T.’s, focusing on a stranded alien called MAC (which is an acronym for Mysterious Alien Creature, and totally “not” a ham-fisted allusion to anything to do with McDonald’s…) who befriends a wheelchair bound young man called Eric Cruise while trying to reunite itself with its family. (Despite the editor of this article having extremely fond recollections of the film as a child… I see now that this must be like Knight Rider if you loved that show as a kid, do yourself a favour and don’t try to re-watch it as an adult…) Released in 1988, six years after E.T., to a chorus of zero and one star reviews, Mac and Me has become somewhat infamous in film circles for being one of the single worst movies ever made. (Even the title was taken from E.T., as the working title for E.T.
This makes it kind of fitting that arguably the worst example of product placement in a movie appeared in a shameless rip-off of E.T. Perhaps the best known example of this is the use of Reece’s Pieces in E.T., which saw a 65% boost in sales almost overnight. Product placement is a subtle art and when it’s done well, a few seconds of footage can instantly raise the profile of a given brand.