For weeks, there has been a dispute between Epic and Apple regarding Fortnite. At the beginning of the conflict, Epic parodied a commercial by Apple directed by the famous director Ridley Scott. Now Scott himself has commented on the copy.
What kind of commercial is this? The “1984” commercial by Apple aired that year during the Super Bowl and was directed by Ridley Scott – the director behind films like Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, or The Martian. The commercial, in turn, referred to George Orwell’s work “1984” – what it’s all about, we have summarized for you here.
Epic used a Fortnite version of the commercial emphasizing that they wanted to stand up against the App Store monopoly. This happened under the hashtag #FreeFortnite – because shortly before, Fortnite had been removed from the App Stores of Apple and Google. The Fortnite version of the commercial looks like this:
Ridley Scott is not a fan of the message of the copy
This is what Ridley Scott says: The director was asked by the US site IGN about the Fortnite copy of his commercial. He said he saw the video and discussed it with the creators, Scott explains.
“On one hand, I can completely enjoy that they [copied my commercial] shot for shot,” said Scott to IGN: “But it’s a shame that the message is so mundane when they could have spoken about democracy or stronger things.” Epic had the chance but did not use it: “I think the animation was great, the idea was great, the message was ‘ehh’.”
Basically, Scott has nothing against the parody; he even praises the technique behind it. Only the occasion seems to disappoint the director.
What is behind the dispute? The reason for the trailer and the legal dispute was a new payment method in Fortnite that allowed players to buy the in-game currency V-Bucks directly from Epic. This was intended to circumvent the 30% fee of the App Stores.
After that, came the removal from the store and the commercial, followed by further battlefields: Apple threatened with further measures, while Fortnite mocked the company on the other side with a skin and an in-game tournament. And finally, Epic CEO Sweeney even praised the competition in another jab at Apple.
