Fans of one of BMW of North America’s most creative and popular advertising programs will be very happy come October 23, 2016. BMW Films is bringing back Clive Owen as “The Driver” in a new short film entitled The Escape.
BMW Films’ newest release will be directed by Academy Award® nominated director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium). Along with Clive Owen (King Arthur, Closer, Children of Men), the cast also stars Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds, I am Sam), Jon Bernthal (The Punisher, Daredevil), and Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga (The Departed, Up in the Air).
The Escape will premiere on Sunday, October 23, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. EST on BMWFilms.com.
As BMW celebrates its 100th anniversary, Clive Owen and BMW Films will be celebrating their fifteenth. Over two seasons—2001 and 2002—BMW released eight short films in a series called “The Hire” directed by top tier directors including Academy Award-winning Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Ang Lee; Joe Carnahan, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie, John Woo, and the late John Frankenheimer and Tony Scott.
The acting talent hired for “The Hire” was also A-list, and featured, Gary Oldman, Stellan Skarsgård, Forest Whitaker, Mickey Rourke, James Brown, Don Cheadle, Madonna, Adriana Lima, Danny Trejo, Kathryn Morris, Marilyn Manson, Ray Liotta, Robert Patrick, and Dennis Haysbert.
Of course the star of the series was the actor who played “The Hire,” a younger Clive Owen. For many of us, it was the first time we would see him on his way to stardom.
BMW released the original series on DVD and online. The DVDs were used as promotional items and most BMW CCA members who attended Oktoberfest in those years were able to pick up a copy—or five. The most amazing part of the campaign was that the eight original “The Hire” short films garnered over 100,000,000 views online, and this was before most people had high-speed Internet and three years before YouTube was invented.
The third film in the original series, entitled “The Follow” was directed by Wong Kar-Wai and submitted to the Cannes Film Festival in 2001 where it was very well received. In 2003—and prompted by the success and high quality of “The Hire” series, the Cannes International Advertising Festival created the Titanium Lion award to honor creative ideas that took the industry in a new direction and redefined the creative landscape. Of course, “The Hire” won the first Titanium Lion and many other awards as well. The series was inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2003.
Since we have more than a month until the premiere of “The Escape,” if you haven’t watched all eight of the original “The Hire” shorts, go online and do so. Let’s call it required viewing for BMW fanatics.—Scott Blazey
[Photos and video courtesy of BMW AG.]
