Скачать или смотреть How 'F1' Turned Brad Pitt Into A $40 Million Walking Billboard

For the past three years, Apple has been selling F1 as a can’t-miss summer blockbuster set in the high-octane world of Formula 1, with the prestige of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Joseph Kosinski and star Brad Pitt. But for David Leener, the producer in charge of the movie’s product placement, his sales pitch was far simpler—turning one of the world’s highest-paid actors (Pitt is earning an estimated $30 million for this film) into a human billboard.

For significant portions of the film, Pitt’s character wears fire suits, helmets and other apparel adorned with more than a dozen logos for brands, including Mercedes, IWC, Geico, EA Sports and Expensify, each of which also have branding on the fictional APXGP team’s car and paid millions for the privilege.

Leener, a pioneer of brand integrations in movies for nearly 30 years, says he brought in more sponsor money for F1 than any film in his career—including Top Gun: Maverick, the two National Treasure pictures and several Transformer movies—by far. Forbes estimates Leener’s sponsorships for F1 have brought in at least $40 million, covering a significant part of a production budget that may be as high as $300 million. And that doesn’t include the tens of millions spent in cross-promotional ads, where brands (some of whom don’t actually appear onscreen) feature the movie in commercials for their own products.

“When [Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team CEO] Toto Wolff found out how much I had raised for our little team, he offered me a job on the spot,” Leener says with a laugh. “Jerry [Bruckheimer] was sitting right there, and I was like, ‘No, I’m good.’ I have a feeling Toto is a little intense to work for.”

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