It’s visibility any chain would die for. Too bad this one’s already dead.
The trailer for Captain Marvel, who emerges from relative obscurity to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe next spring, features a few interesting cameos—but none more unexpected than that of Blockbuster.
The video rental chain has a lengthy, front-and-center product placement right at the beginning of the first official trailer for the superhero film, despite the fact Blockbuster entered a death spiral around 2010 that rapidly shuttered thousands of locations. Today, only one Blockbuster location remains open, as an independent rental store in Bend, Oregon.
So what’s with the bizarre, too-late-to-help product placement? It all makes sense once you watch the trailer:
While you might have been expecting a new hero to emerge onto the scene just in the nick of time to help with that whole Thanos situation, instead you learn that interstellar protagonist Carol Danvers has been kicking around Earth since the 1990s.
And her most impressive costar is definitely the CGI tech who made Samuel L. Jackson look a solid 30 years younger.
It’s hard to tell from the trailer if this will be a Wonder Woman-esque plot that takes place entirely in one chunk of the past or whether her origin story will lead closer to the dramatic events of Infinity War (patient viewers of which might have noticed a hint about Captain Marvel’s involvement amidst the credits).
But in the meantime, we’re all left waxing nostalgic about life in the ’90s. Here’s hoping she smashes her way through a Bombay Company and a Circuit City!
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David Griner
@griner
David Griner is creative and innovation editor for Adweek. He’s been covering agencies, creativity, technology and marketing innovation for more than a decade and is host of Adweek’s podcast.
