Movies are all about product placement these days. Take the 2015 movie Avengers: Age of Ultron. In that, an electric Harley Davidson is featured in a scene. What did that cost the company? A cool $10 million. BMW paid ten times that amount to get its cars in the first three Pierce Brosnan James Bond movies. Whatever the brand, from cars to beer, watches to volleyballs, there’s valuable advertising to be had from featuring in a movie.
Of course, it also benefits those making the film. Nothing builds an illusion of reality more than seeing brands we have in our homes – laptops, cars, phones, even breakfast cereals. If we see something on screen we have in our cupboards, it makes us feel like the movie is taking place somewhere in our world. With that in mind, movie producers often include brands for free to get their hands on props that might otherwise be expensive.
Sometimes, products are included just because they’re cool and iconic. Sunglasses are a great example of this. Oakley sunglasses are widely regarded as a brand that epitomizes cool; they’re stylish and iconic, and they can be found perched on the noses of the person in the street, sports stars on television, or fictional characters on the big screen. Whether wearing Holbrook or Sutro straight out of their catalog or something a little more bespoke for the screen, whoever wears them, one thing is for sure – that person feels cool.
With that in mind, we’ve scoured the movie archives to find five instances where Oakley sunglasses popped up in our favorite movies.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Tropic Thunder was a movie about making a movie, both an insane comedy and a satire on the grotesque caricatures that you find dotted about the movie industry. A stellar cast including Tom Cruise, Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey Jr had audiences in hysterics throughout this classic 2008 flick. Audiences loved it – it made $195.7 million at the box office, well over its $95 million budget. Who knew a film about making an expensive flop would be a money-making hit?
In an early scene featuring Steve Coogan and Danny McBride, the latter is seen as an explosive expert blowing up the jungle in a costly error. In the scene, he’s seen in a pair of Oakleys – Half Jacket 2.0 Low Bridge Fit, to be exact. They fit with the character’s supposed extreme lifestyle, where explosive and high-octane stunts are an everyday occurrence.
Sabotage (2004)
Sabotage – an apt name for a film that did a lot to sabotage Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action-hero legacy. It was a huge box office flop, as you’d expect an Arnie action film based on a book by Agatha Christie to be. It doesn’t sound like it could ever work, and with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 22%, it clearly didn’t.
To make the then 67-year-old Schwarzenegger look cooler, the director turned to a pair of Oakley sunglasses. He’s seen with a pair of Radar sunglasses, with a black frame and a silver logo. They also featured the Range lenses, optional in this particular pair. Luckily, watching the movie was also optional, and far fewer people bothered than you’d expect for a Hollywood heavyweight. At least it didn’t do him too much damage – his spy series recently got picked up by Netflix, ensuring the last action hero is still on form, nine years after this hiccup.
22 Jump Street (2014)
Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, and Ice Cube star in this sequel, the prequel to which was based on a popular late-eighties TV series. It was both a financial box office smash and critically acclaimed by cinema-goers, mainly due to the chemistry between Tatum and Hill, two superbly contrasting characters who ensure plenty of laughs.
However, Captain Dickson, played by Ice Cube, is the straight guy to their goofing, and he’s shown as such by looking stylish, firm, and utterly cool. How? Why, in a pair of Oakley sunglasses, of course! He pairs the classic Holbrooks with a Trilby in one scene that asserts his authority on viewers without a word being uttered from the script.
Dumb Money (2023)
Dumb Money is a comedy-drama based on the real-life events that surrounded the GameStop short squeeze, where a company’s stock was elevated way above what should have been expected. How ironic, then, that the film’s return at the box office was far lower than investors expected – falling $10m after the first two and a half months following its initial cinematic release.
However, one of the most recent instances of Oakley placements can be found in one of its stars – comedian Pete Davidson. He plays Kevin, the cooler brother of nerdy Keith Gill, and to underline his coolness, the film’s makers use Oakley sunglasses. He’s seen in a pair of EVZero Blades with a silver Space Dust frame.