Guess which car company is being sued for going back on their word? It’s Peugeot, and the aggrieved party is Alcon Entertainment, the studio behind the Blade Runner 2049 film. Those who have seen the movie should immediately get a sense of what the lawsuit is about.
That flying car – called a ‘spinner’ in the movie – was branded as a Peugeot only because the two parties inked a deal where the French automaker paid Alcon a sum of money for the product placement worth $500,000 on top of a guaranteed media spend (read: marketing) of $30 million. We can only assume that Peugeot paid the studio the half-a-mil, but didn’t commit to the multi-million promotion spend. In its 132-page complaint to the Federal Court, Alcon said that "Peugeot never executed any promotion and the Picture undoubtedly suffered for it." The company also indicated that Blade Runner 2049 would have grossed more than $260 million with some flying car commercials.
Alcon had indicated that initially another car company wanted to pay several hundred thousand dollars as well as $16 million for promotions, although clearly what Peugeot offered was far more tempting.
It is believed that Peugeot presented the deal in preparation for its comeback into the American market exiting it in 1991.
We’re not lawyers but if we read it right, the studio is suing Peugeot for quite a sum of money. Check out the complaint, here.
