Sabrina Carpenter is in Fortnite. John Wick is in Fortnite. The trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet premiered in Fortnite. That there’s a significant crossover between Hollywood and the battle-royale video game is no significant news in and of itself, but a new collaboration is one of the weirdest clashes yet.
On July 24, the One Battle After Another Instagram account posted a video of an animated Fortnite man in military garb running to answer the payphone that features at the start of the film’s first trailer. The video then cuts to black with an announcement: “One Battle After Another: Coming to Fortnite.” Obviously, it’s not so weird when they upload an Ariana Grande skin into Fortnite, but the forthcoming Paul Thomas Anderson–Thomas Pynchon adaptation about insurgency does not exactly lend itself to the most backpack-dance-friendly video-game adaptation. Why is this happening? Is WB hoping to make good on its $100 million-plus investment in Anderson’s film with a last-minute attempt to woo zoomers? Do Anderson’s kids — who like Marvel films — have anything to do with this? Are cast members Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro, and Teyana Taylor about to be playable skins? Is Sean Penn? Does Sean Penn know what Fortnite is?
Despite the obvious weirdness of an auteur like Anderson collaborating with Fortnite, One Battle After Another seems — at least on paper — like a solid fit for a video-game tie-in. Anderson’s film is something of an action-comedy, replete with guns and car chases, and Fortnite is also about running around with guns and behaving insane. This team-up opens the door for more collaborations between the greater PTA cinematic universe and Fortnite: Let’s start talking about Reynolds Woodcock–designed skins or letting users play as Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday. To quote one Instagram comment: “Barry Egan skin when???” (in reference to Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love). Or maybe there can be more Leonardo DiCaprio characters to add later: Romeo, Jack, the guy who got attacked by the bear in The Revenant. If there’s one person involved with One Battle After Another who already knows what Fortnite is, it’s DiCaprio. He has to do something with Tobey Maguire and Lukas Haas when they’re not on a yacht.
As we’ve seen from Barbenheimer and last year’s merch-dense Wicked takeover, the best approach to marketing is something execs refer to as “culture jacking.” We’ve yet to see any fast-food tie-ins or Sephora kits (or specialty popcorn buckets) for One Battle After Another, but the potential Fortnite collaboration feels at odds with a director who generally makes movies for audiences much older than the average Fortnite-playing crowd. But the sentiment is nice, and who knows? Maybe it could work. Cinephiles love Anderson, and gamers can, too.
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