Everyone can have their hearts broken by handsome men with accents, it turns out — even brands in pursuit of product placement.
Sony’s cellphone division, Sony Mobile, like many of us, really wanted a relationship with Daniel Craig. But the actor rejected their advances, according to leaked emails from last year’s Sony Pictures hack.
The company offered Craig $5 million to use a Sony phone in the forthcoming James Bond movie, Spectre. He turned it down, apparently because Sony phones aren’t cool enough for James Bond.
An email from George Leon, Sony’s executive vice president of consumer marketing, indicates that Craig and director Sam Mendes met with Barbara Broccoli, daughter of Albert Broccoli who produced the original James Bond films, to discuss the possibility of product placement in Spectre.
The deal would have included $18 million for marketing, in addition to $5 million for Craig.
But the talks don’t seem to have gone very well. A second email from Andrew Gumpert, President of Worldwide Business Affairs and Operations for Columbia Pictures reveals a competing offer from Samsung and the cruel letdown from Craig and Mendes.
“BEYOND the $$ factor, there is, as you may know, a CREATIVE factor whereby Sam and Daniel don’t like the Sony phone for the film (the thinking, subjectively/objectively is that James Bond only uses the ‘best,’ and in their minds, the Sony phone is not the ‘best’).”
Sorry, Sony — you’re just not cool enough.