Looking back Gerard Butler’s Pentagon briefing and other grandiose film campaigns
The actor promoted his new thriller while also fielding questions about Saudi Arabia – and he’s not the first to spearhead an overblown press tour
When you saw Gerard Butler in the Pentagon briefing room this week, admit it, you very briefly thought that he worked there now.
You thought that Donald Trump had accidentally seen a clip of Olympus Has Fallen in the middle of a 5am toilet tweet marathon, mistook it for Fox News and hired Butler for a position of enormous international importance.
But no. The truth is much worse than that. The truth is that Gerard Butler was promoting a new movie. As such, he has now joined the ranks of celebrities who aren’t above wildly overestimating their value with a hubris-laden promotional opportunity.
Gerard Butler, 2018
Most film junkets are held in cramped little hotel rooms. This time, however, Gerard Butler wanted his to take place in the actual Pentagon.
Specifically, he wanted it to take place in the Pentagon briefing room, standing right in front of the official seal like a big boy would. Even better, he got to obliquely reference the news of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, stating that he was cancelling a planned trip to Saudi Arabia as a result.
The movie is promoted: Hunter Killer, about a big submarine.
Natalie Portman, 2006
Portman, then aged 24, chose to promote a movie by becoming a Columbia University lecturer for the day. But not just any lecturer; she gave one on counter-terrorism.
At one point a student asks the star of Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium whether America’s policy of extraordinary rendition is indirectly inspiring a new wave of terrorists. Portman replied: “It’s possible”, adding that “it’s also dangerous to say that we’re creating terrorism”, so that’s that cleared up forever, then.
Movie being promoted: V For Vendetta, a film best-known for its array of horrific accents and the fictional breakfast dish eggy in a basket.
Brie Larson, 2017
Larson used her Instagram account to post a still of her upcoming movie, alongside a tribute to the profession she was playing . “I make movies as a form of activism,” she wrote. “I believe we learn from what we see in our leaders. I’m proud to play Mason Weaver … Weaver leads with compassion and believes that unity cannot be obtained through aggression.”
Movie being promoted: Kong: Skull Island, a film that about a big gorilla punching things until they explode.
M Night Shyamalan, 2004
Most directors, when they release a film, are content to sit in on a handful of six-minute junket interviews. But not M Night Shyamalan, who instead took a new movie as an opportunity to make and release a hubris-laden faux-documentary entitled The Buried Secret of M Night Shyamalan, in which a dogged film-maker discovers that Shyamalan – as well as being a mystic visionary beloved by all – drowned as a child, and has had a tangible link to the supernatural ever since. It’s the sort of cack-handed vanity project you’d run a million miles from unless you were a dyed-in-the-wool egomaniac. Fortunately, that’s Shyamalan.
Movie being promoted: The Village, a film about a spooky village.
Stephen Baldwin, 2018
Proving that at least one member of the family is still willing to show the proper respect to authority, Stephen Baldwin met the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, in Manila this summer, where they discussed topics as diverse as Jesus, Duterte’s strong anti-drug stance and what the hell Baldwin is going to do about having Justin Bieber as a son-in-law.
During the meeting, Baldwin praised Duterte for his high trust rating among voters, and failed to mention any of the several off-colour rape jokes that the president keeps making in public.
Movie being promoted: Kaibigan, a film that none of you are realistically ever going to watch voluntarily.
Robocop, 1987
Proving that characters are just as susceptible to the hubris of celebrity as actors, Robocop – the actual Robocop, in his uniform and everything – rubbed shoulders with former president Richard Nixon at a national board meeting of the Boys Club of America.
If you look closely at the photograph of the meeting, you’ll see that while Nixon looks genuinely enthused about getting to meet a zero-tolerance robotic policeman in the flesh, Robocop is clearly worried that his evil detectors will go off and cause something of a faux pas.
