Bad Content Licensing Deals

Anticipating the pop culture zeitgeist is a tricky business, and there's no such thing as a sure bet. Still, given comedian Mike Myers' record of success in masterminding Hollywood feature franchises like Wayne's World and Austin Powers, it seemed safe to believe his next project--the 2008 self-help comedy The Love Guru--would prove another box-office smash. That is, until critics got a look at it. Long story short, in its opening weekend The Love Guru grossed $13.9 million in 3,012 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, rising to just No. 4 in the box office rankings. Not only did the opening week numbers fall far short of the movie's forecasted $20 million haul, but to date The Love Guru has grossed only $32 million in North America, about half of its $62 million budget.

While Mike Myers' career took the most significant hit, the collateral damage included mobile media firm Player X, which inked an exclusive agreement with Paramount Digital Entertainment to launch The Love Guru mobile game [1], introduced via Verizon Wireless in June. Developed by Tag Games, The Love Guru features six mini-games requiring mobile players to pass mental challenges and achieve spiritual enlightenment. Yeah, it doesn't sound very fun to me, either. Given the lengthy developmental cycle required between signing a content licensing agreement and releasing the completed game, one can understand where Player X believed it had a hit on its hands--after all, a Mike Myers comedy is a slam dunk, right? Well, no. Have you seen The Cat in the Hat? The prosecution rests.

And let's not forget another ill-considered mobile licensing deal: In early June, retail chain Kmart announced a partnership with Universal Pictures and Marvel Entertainment [2] for a multichannel marketing promotion supporting the release of the Edward Norton-led film The Incredible Hulk. In addition to an "Incredible Dad" promotion timed to coincide with Father's Day, Kmart launched a text-to-win sweepstakes promising trips to the Universal Studios Orlando theme park as well as gift cards and Incredible Hulk merchandise. Alongside traditional media advertising efforts, Kmart also embraced the mobile platform to deliver promotional messages, ringtones and wallpapers. The movie--a reboot of the Hulk franchise following the mind-bogglingly bad Ang Lee adaptation from 1993--fared only marginally better than its predecessor, paling in comparison to Marvel's summer blockbuster Iron Man. Maybe because nothing says "This movie is gonna suck" more clearly than a marketing tie-in with Kmart?