Business Movie Stars: Real Companies on the Silver Screen
The glow of the silver screen seems to be one of the few bright spots in today’s dark economic landscape. The National Association of Theatre Owners reported recently that movie ticket sales were up about 11% compared with last year.
The public forked over more than $1.34 billion at the box office in 2007, a record year for movie receipts. While many other industries were struggling during the recession of 2008, the figure for box-office receipts rose to more than $1.48 billion.
In honor of the start of the summer movie season with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this week Hoover’s Editors look at companies with some kind of a movie connection. Not companies that make movies, but ones with a business somehow associated with a movie that may have even contributed to its success (or perhaps vice versa).
In 1953 future president George H.W. Bush founded Zapata Corporation with a few other oil men. None of them were named Zapata however. Rather the company’s name was inspired by Viva Zapata!, a 1952 biopic that starred Marlon Brando as Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.
2. Boots and Coots International Well Control
This company was founded by Boots Hansen and Coots Matthews, two hellfighters – or specialists in oil-well fires – who apprenticed under Red Adair. John Wayne played Adair in the 1968 film Hellfighters. Hansen and Mathews are included in the film’s credits as Miscellaneous Crew.
3. Macy’s
The largest department store chain in the US provided the setting for Miracle on 34th Street. This 1947 Christmas classic featured a Santa-for-hire who insists he’s the real thing. A Macy’s psychologist (yeah, really) challenges the avowed Kris Kringle and lands him in a court hearing that looks at the true meaning of Christmas.
In I Am Sam Sean Penn played a mentally challenged man who works at Starbucks while trying to prove to doubtful authorities that he’s a competent father to his seven-year-old daughter. Scenes of Penn’s character working were shot in an actual Starbucks.
With Julia Roberts starring as the title character, Erin Brockovich depicted the true-life case of a California woman who claimed that Pacific Gas & Electric illegally dumped contaminants and endangered the health of nearby residents. Her campaign resulted in one of the biggest class-action lawsuits in US history.
6. CBS, Westinghouse, and Brown & Williamson
The Insider gave these three companies star billing, but none of them emerged as heroes. The film is based on the true case of a former Brown & Williamson employee who told 60 Minutes that the tobacco industry tried to make their products more addictive. Ready to acquire CBS and fearing a lawsuit, Westinghouse forced CBS to cancel the segment.
In Where The Heart Is, Natalie Portman played pregnant 17-year-old who is abandoned at an Oklahoma Wal-Mart while traveling to California with her boyfriend. The film shows her secretly living in the Wal-Mart and later giving birth to her baby there.
8. Kerr-McGee Corporation
Silkwood portrayed the efforts of Kerr-McGee employee Karen Silkwood, played by Meryl Streep, to publicize hazardous conditions of the nuclear plant where she worked. True to life, the film showed her dying in a mysterious accident at the end.
North Country took its inspiration from one of the first successful sexual harassment cases in US history, Jenson v. Eveleth Mines. Charlize Theron played Josey Aimes, who was among the first women to work at Eveleth Mines and suffer harassment. The film depicted her day-to-day difficulties and ultimate legal triumph. Eveleth Mines later went bankrupt and its operations were acquired by a company controlled by Cliffs Natural Resources.
