#HTE

A Closer Look at That Redesigned Johnnie Walker Bottle in “Blade Runner 2049”

I finally caught Blade Runner 2049 over the weekend, and it was fantastic, a true successor the original. It’s underperforming at the box office due to business reasons that have nothing to do with its high quality. If you haven’t seen it, check it out before it disappears; this is one that you really need to see on the big screen.

Blade Runner is one of those rare franchises where the product placement doesn’t bother me, and part of the fun this time ‘round was seeing which brands have survived in this alternative version of our future: Atari, Pan-Am, Sony–that one being no surprise as they own Columbia Pictures, which produced the movie–and K’s spinner is a Peugeot.

My favorite brand appearance of all was Johnnie Walker. I’m triple-biased as I like the Blade Runner universe, I used to work in structural package design (i.e. bottles) and I loves me some Johnnie Black.

Fans of the original will remember that both Deckard and his supervisor Bryant are seen swilling from futuristic bottles of Black Label, the giveaway being the distinctive diagonal label.

Now we see that thirty years later Deckard is still drinking the same booze, but the bottle design has gotten a nifty redesign:

I had to look these up. Alcohol industry trade magazine Beverage Media reports that Diageo actually made 39,000 of the funky bottles, filled them with a stronger 98-proof blend (the regular stuff is 80-proof), and started selling them this month for $90.

Of course, exactly what you’d think would happen has happened: A bunch of jerks have bought every one of these bottles they could get their hands on, and are now hawking them on eBay for double the price. And this jerk right here is selling his for $178.18–empty. The nerve!