Today, in news about cognac, experimental film-making, and/or weirdly high-profile marketing stunts: Robert Rodriguez and John Malkovich have teamed up to create a film that won’t be released to the public for 100 years. The point of the gimmick? To promote Louis XIII cognac, which is apparently aged 100 years before being placed on the market. (That seems like a lot of work for something that’s inevitably going to end up in someone’s ridiculously expensive toilet, but hey, to each their own.)
Outside of some muted comments about futurism, Rodriguez and Malkovich are staying quiet about 100 Years’ content. But they did release a series of teaser trailers to whet the whistles of the cognac drinkers of tomorrow, showing fans three visions of how John Malkovich might someday dress himself in really unfortunate clothes.
To be clear, these teaser trailers don’t have any of the actual content from Rodriguez’s film, which will presumably look slightly less shitty than John Malkovich: Bad Shirt Model Of Tomorrow. That’s assuming the thing actually exists, of course. Not to go all conspiracy theorist, after all, but Louis XIII does get exactly the same promotional push today if everyone involved just says they made a super secret special movie, without actually having to put the thing to film. It would save on production costs, certainly, not to mention translating the thing into whatever language cockroaches speak after they rise up to fill the world we leave behind, when the Cognac Wars Of 2063 wipe the human species out for good.
But, hey, maybe we’re just being cynics, and our marketing bullshit detectors need to be recalibrated. Maybe the film exists. Maybe it’s great! Maybe Rodriguez licensed that $5 million, 88-year-long copyright Wu-Tang Clan album for the soundtrack, and the people of 2115—for whom high-priced brandy ads are the highest form of art— will laud it for its genius. In any case, people desperate to see a completely unseen John Malkovich don’t necessarily have to wait past their own natural lifespans for the privilege; after all, Johnny English is available on Amazon right now.
[via io9]