In case you somehow missed it, didn’t care, or were living under a rock, Fox Searchlight’s “Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance" dominated the Academy Awards this weekend. The movie won Best Picture, filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu won Best Director and the movie also took Best Cinematography and Best Screenplay (all our 2015 Oscar coverage can be found here).
And in case you’re somehow unaware, the superhero-skewering conceit of the movie (though really it’s a big send-up on the entire movie industry and its players too) is that Michael Keaton’s character is a once-iconic, now-washed-up actor known for a past superstar career where he played Birdman to blockbuster success in multiple sequels (and in the movie he’s trying to regain his artistic dignity by mounting a Broadway play of merit).
To celebrate their Oscar wins, Fox Searchlight has released this amusing “Birdman” action-figure commercial. “Hey kids! You too can now defeat Birdman’s arch-nemesis The Condor with this spiffy Birdman Action Figure! Batteries not included.” It’s obviously right out of a commercial you’d see in the 1980s during Saturday morning cartoons when the powers that be were marketing right at you and you’d then attack your parents for whatever they were schilling. It even talks and says, “smells like balls!” Fun fact, Searchlight produced many of these action figures and released them as promotional items to press earlier in the year. Maybe one day they’ll be collector’s items? Watch below.