If you have read practically anything I’ve ever written for BMW CCA—or anyone else, for that matter!—then it will come as no surprise that I find the early 2000s to be a high-water mark for BMW. Why? Simple. They were on top of the world; they were quickly gaining ground on luxury arch nemesis Mercedes-Benz for king in sales. The E38 7 Series was the flagship model—not to mention the halo Z8—and BMW Motorsport entered the new millennium on the heels of a victory at Le Mans in 1999 with sights set squarely on Formula 1.
It didn’t hurt that the E39 M5 and E46 M3 were at the pinnacle of their respective sport-sedan segments, either.
So all looked good for the Bavarians. Sales were climbing, contracts for Formula 1 engines were inked with Williams, and the product offering was strong. How, then, might BMW demonstrate just how wonderful all things BMW were? Make a movie about der wunderbar autos!
And so they did—five films to start with, followed by another three as web shorts in mid-2001 and 2002. The overall series title of The Hire provided stories about a nameless driver who has a penchant for BMWs, using his skills as a wheelman to get himself and his clients through a bad situation. When I was eighteen, that premise alone would have been enough to hook me—but the plot was only half the story. To weave their anthology, BMW contracted highly accomplished directors like John Frankenheimer of Grand Prix and Ronin fame, Ang Lee coming off the arthouse version of The Hulk, and Guy Ritchie, who had made a name for himself both as the husband of Madonna and the director of the frenetic Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.
The combination of noteworthy directors and Clive Owen as the nameless driver behind the wheel of BMW’s latest and greatest proved to be unbeatable.
The premise was straight-forward; the anonymous driver was paid to transport precious cargo from one location to the next—simple in concept, but it typically ended with clouds of tire smoke, high-revving engines, and gunfire from equally anonymous assailants as the driver did all he could to get the cargo to its assigned location.
Between the first two seasons, the series had millions of online views—impressive for any viral video on YouTube today—but this was before readily available high-speed Internet. By combining the best in Hollywood with the best in German cars, BMW had struck gold while bringing in a whole new, younger audience to the brand: the tech-savvy generation.
The Hire was so successful that Clive Owen was brought back for a second season with the then-new Z4 roadster, featured exclusively as a means of launching the new convertible. In addition to a new roster of directors—Joe Carnahan, John Woo, and Tony Scott—BMW Films brought in guest stars like James Brown and Gary Oldman, who played the devil racing Brown for possession of his soul in the episode Beat the Devil. Never a dull moment in a BMW!
There was one film that always stood out to me, though. Star by Guy Ritchie involved Ritchie’s then-wife Madonna as a pretentious music superstar (fitting) getting punished by a slighted manager, who pays off the driver to pitch her around the two-tone rear seat of a Titanium Silver M5 before dumping her out at her own concert under questionable circumstances—all set to the equally upbeat soundtrack of Song 2 by Blur. That ten-minute movie was a turning point for me, and an enabling factor when I bought my first BMW in the spring of 2002.
However, BMW Films didn’t just inspire me—or anyone else, for that matter—to buy a car. The films changed the auto industry and redefined how a company could appeal to the masses. The Internet era had reached the automotive industry—with BMW leading the charge.
While I enjoyed The Hire series, and re-watched it innumerable times, the magnitude of the achievement didn’t set in with me until the mid-2000s, when a friend who was nearing the end of an advertising graduate program rang me about my affinity for BMWs. He was studying the impact of BMW Films on advertising, and how the series was deemed innovative in finding new ways to reach audiences. The series brought a new form of advertising and integration with the Internet in a creative, engaging way not previously done—but often repeated by other manufacturers with varying degrees of success. Did the other brands go so far as to embed little Easter eggs within their films, so that if you followed a series of clues, you would win a copy of The Hire series on DVD? I think not! BMW did, though, and after a few phone calls and clues being dropped, a few lucky fans won prizes.
Let that sink in for a moment. BMW Films was so successful that top-tier advertising programs were teaching it only a few years after the launch of the site, as a highly effective approach to the age-old question of how to reach customers. Perhaps they changed the advertising world as much as they did the automotive industry!
Fast-forward to 2016, fifteen years on from the launch of the revolutionary BMW Films site. The relaunch of the series has just been announced with Clive Owen, reprising his role as the mysterious driver.
There is little known at this stage about these new films, other than—I am going out on a limb here—it will prominently feature the driver pushing the limits of BMW’s latest offerings, in new and increasingly harrowing situations. However, the new series will star, in addition to Owen, Dakota Fanning, John Bernthal, and Vera Farmiga, under the direction of Neil Blomkamp from District 9 and Elysium. This sounds like a list of ingredients for another exciting installment with our favorite driver in our favorite cars.
The early indications about the new series are something to give many fans hope for a third round of The Hire (the new series called The Escape). The bar is set very high, however; in its first go-round, BMW managed to change the face of the industry and draw people en masse into brand identification by demonstrating the simple idea of the ultimate driving machine in a manner that was anything but simple to execute. They pulled it off flawlessly, and you will find me parked in front of my laptop on October 23 when the new series is launched.
And for those who haven’t seen the films yet: Stop what you’re doing and watch all of The Hire films—immediately!—Andrew Murphy
