Sundance 2011 First Look: Morgan Spurlock's 'The Greatest Movie Ever Sold'

One of the movies which immediately caught my eye when looking at the line-up for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival is Morgan Spurlock's new documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Spurlock shot to fame at the 2004 festival with his feature doc Super Size Me, and has since produced two seasons of the underrated reality cable series 30 Days. His feature follow-up Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? was met with mixed response. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is his third theatrical feature film (not counting the segment he directed for the Freakanomics movie).

The initial announcement described the movie as "A documentary about branding, advertising and product placement is financed and made possible by branding, advertising and product placement." Sounds like an interesting, if not gimmicky, concept. Hit the jump to see the first image from the film.

Sundance's longer description of the film follows:

Acclaimed filmmaker and master provocateur Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) returns to the Sundance Film Festival with tongue-in-cheek perfection as he examines the world of product placement, marketing, and advertising by making a film financed entirely by product placement, marketing, and advertising. We live in an age where it's tough even to walk down the street without someone trying to sell you something. It's at the point where practically the entire American experience is brought to us by some corporation. Utilizing cutting-edge tools of comic exploration and total self-exploitation, Spurlock dissects the world of advertising and marketing by using his personal integrity as currency to sell out to the highest bidder. Scathingly funny, subversive, and deceptively smart, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold shines the definitive light on our branded future as Spurlock attempts to create the "Iron Man of documentaries," the first ever "docbuster"! He may very well have succeeded.

Spurlock says that he has "funded this entire film with money from some pretty straight-laced companies, and the end result will surely make you laugh all the way to therapy." The plan is to release the movie in Spring of 2011.

via: Gordon and the Whale