2005 Ford Mustang Steve McQueen Commercial

[Hugh DiMauro]

Has anybody seen that new 2005 Mustang commercial where they morphed Steve McQueen (from Bullitt) into the present day commercial? Freaking AWESOME! It was a parody of "Field of Dreams". I saw it on the big screen at our local movie theatre just prior to the film trailers.

[Dylan Couper]

Agreed. Very cool.

But somehow disturbing at the same time.

[Robert Mann Z.]

view it here

http://bradbarnett.net/mustangs/ads/05/

[Hugh DiMauro]

I just downloadedthe commercial to my hard drive. You are the best! Thanks for finding that!

[Imran Zaidi]

How does that work when a celebrity is dead and long gone? Does the owner of the estate just approve/disapprove the usage?

I'm curious - I know McQueen was a huge racing nut, but I wonder if he'd enjoy someone hocking their product with his body. Of course, knowing his style, he probably would've loved coming back from the dead to look really cool and slick one more time...

[K. Forman]

I also feel uneasy about using the likeness of the deceased to hock products. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should be.

The dead need a good Union. Maybe Jimmy Hoffa should run it?

[Imran Zaidi]

Don't be silly. Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well and living in Hackensack, New Jersey.

http://phone.people.yahoo.com/py/lg:...one=2013427732

[Hugh DiMauro]

I am probably the biggest Steve McQueen fan in the world (If not at least in New Jersey). I've read most every biography written on the guy and studied his technique in some of his movies.

Yes. He was a BIG racing fan and not only raced Formula cars but was an accomplished motorcross racer. He loved tinkering with engines and was also an accomplished mechanic.

He is a former U.S. Marine (and I can say I am proud to have served in the same branch as he!) and even won a medal for saving the live(s) of his fellow Marines who had almost drowned when a tank in which his buddies had been riding, fell off of a barge and sunk to the bottom of the body of water they had been crossing at the time. He dove in, crawled inside the tank and pulled them out.

In any case, it's kinda ridiculous to speculate whether or not he would "approve" of the use of his likeness in a Mustang commercial. His son, Chad, controls the rights to the Steve McQueen name and franchise and, of course, had to give permission to Ford Motor Company to use not only his likeness but actual clips from the Warner Brothers movie Bullitt. (I hope I am correct here. If not, I probably look like a blowhard know-it-all). Let's face it. Mr. McQueen made the 1968 Mustang famous in the 1968 movie Bullitt and it's only fitting that he endorses the 2005 product which frighteningly resembles the 1968 original.

Just my two cents.

[Robert Mann Z.]

i have shot tons of green screen footage of myself just in case i become famous after i die, my kids could sell my rights...its in my will

[John Sandel]

Ford doesn't need to steal McQueen's likeness when all they have to do is pay for it. Entertainment law's been all over this since before the advent of digital insertions.

Here in L.A., there's a company which licenses the likeness of several "golden years" stars---Karloff among them---and guess who runs it? Bela Lugosi's son, who's an attorney. Given some of the goofy "futurist" provisions I've had struck from screenwriting contracts, I'd be surprised if the deals under which today's stars are paid don't include explicit provisions for exploiting their likenesses thru any number of post-mortem technologies.

(Now Warner Bros. has blurred the human/image line more, by coating Tom hanks with a digital skin in "Polar Express." Who's to say that's his likeness or not? After Hanks is dead, couldn't they by rights just excavate him digitally and make "Polar Express XVIII" ...?)

Look in the future for movies starring box-office draws like Clint Eastwood (when he's dead), or John Wayne or Raquel Welch or whomever is the retro-star-of-the-moment.

JS