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Movie, TV Tie-Ins Often Sobering For Liquor Firms

For Budweiser, it looked like a match made in heaven. So America's top-selling beer tied the knot with "Wedding Crashers," paying a product-placement fee to be featured in the current box office champ and then ponying up millions of dollars for its first major movie promotion in 14 years. But then the Marin Institute, a prominent alcohol industry watchdog group, decided to do some wedding crashing of its own, alleging that even though the movie is rated R, the Budweiser tie-in encourages underage drinking because the movie's racy subject matter and its two stars -- Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn -- appeal to male adolescents.

Read the whole story at The Hollywood Reporter, via Reuters, August 1, 2005 »

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