Gary Mezzatesta '80

Hollywood Squares | Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

by Todd Larson

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In the original script for Adam Sandler's "Big Daddy," slacker hero Sonny (Sandler) takes his newly adopted son, Julian, to McDonald's for breakfast on Saturday morning. The gag - beyond the fact that the layabout Sonny hasn't been up on a Saturday morning since he himself was a kid - stems from Sandler's hilariously delayed arrival at 10:01, a minute past the breakfast-lunch cutoff.

Those who have seen the film, however, might recall that the events actually play out somewhat differently. Sonny thinks breakfast ends at 10:30, not 10:00; his bumbling effort to make the deadline, while comic, is ultimately foiled by his own miscalculation rather than the restaurant's inflexible adherence to a cutoff he's missed by mere seconds.

So why the change? "McDonald's didn't want to look like fascists," explains Gary Mezzatesta '80, president of Universal Product Placement (UPP), "where you go in 30 seconds too late, and they say 'Sorry, we're not serving any longer.'"

That the wise-cracking Sandler actually cared about McDonald's corporate sensitivities, much less caved in to them, is indicative of the sort of behind-the-scenes Hollywood dealmaking that Mezzatesta is involved with every day. UPP, the largest outfit in the highly competitive product-placement business, regularly reviews scripts to identify placement opportunites for its clients - including popular brands like Evian, Bacardi and Quaker Oats - and then hammers out deals with filmmakers to get the products in the films.

"It was our field, so they played by our rules," says Mezzatesta matter-of-factly. "We created a win-win where it was still funny and worked creatively, but made the company appear sympathetic."

Surprisingly, Mezzatesta notes that placements are often free. Sandler, for example, wanted McDonald's - not to mention the free shoot location - enough to agree to the change. "It was our field, so they played by our rules," says Mezzatesta matter-of-factly. "We created a win-win where it was still funny and worked creatively, but made the company appear sympathetic." For their part, McDonald's received the benefit of free (and ultimately positive) publicity in the 7th most popular film of 1999 - courtesy of a star beloved by the young adult males who comprise the restaurant's "super-heavy" core customers.

Mezzatesta, who attened Stanford Business School after Haverford, has steered UPP in new directions since joining the firm in 1983 and buying out the two original partners in 1989 and 1996, respectively. Under his guidance, the company has branched into celebrity relations and event sponsorships, and recently founded a separate company specializing in urban marketing. UPP-Europe, another subsidiary, has extended the core business overseas.

"There's a different style of ethics and morals in Hollywood," says the Cliffside Park, NJ, native. "It's a smoke-and-mirror kind of business. It's hard to trust people, and it leads to a lot of misunderstanding. Basically what my clients pay me to do is understand that, to help them navigate through this world."