‘Watchmen’ Fans Get Coffee and a Chance at Tickets
The long-awaited “Watchmen” movie opening nationwide March 5, has its share of the standard merchandising, including gimme caps, jackets and T-shirts decked with the film’s trademark blood-spattered smiley face.
But one promotional item seems to be attracting more than the usual share of attention from online fans of the 1986 comic book: a brand of coffee served in the series by one of the superhero stars, the Night Owl.
A limited number of commemorative cans of Night Owl Dark Roast coffee are being sold by the Organic Coffee Cartel, which is owned by Clay Enos, the unit photographer on the set of the “Watchmen” film just wrapped at Warner Bros. studio.
OCC is selling the coffee through a number of online outlets and its own Web site. Only 10,000 of the collectible cans will be produced. The coffee is priced at $19.99 for a one-pound can, with a portion of the proceeds going to charity.
To promote the movie, and reportedly at the suggestion of director Zack Snyder, OCC also ran a sweepstakes contest offering a chance to win two tickets to the Los Angeles movie premiere and after party on March 3. To qualify for the giveaway, customers had to place their online orders by Feb. 26.
“Making an imaginary coffee into something real seemed like a fitting and fun way to honor the multi-layered world of ‘Watchmen,’” Enos said in a release. “And having a majority of the profits go to charity seems a little like something Adrian Veidt would do.”
In the story, Adrian Veidt is a superhero who reveals his identity and becomes a millionaire global philanthropist. The Night Owl coffee brand is marketed as a product of “Veidt Enterprises.”
The coffee’s packaging reflects both the look of the movie and that of the comic series, with a colorful logo on one side of the can and a black and white portrait by Enos of the movie’s Night Owl, portrayed by actor Patrick Wilson.
