‘One Night Only’ Director Says He Had to Beg Brands to Show Their Products

Will Gluck has revealed that getting real brands into his new romantic comedy One Night Only was much harder than audiences might expect.

The director spoke to Variety ahead of the movie’s release and explained that the products seen throughout the film were not paid placements. In fact, Gluck said the production had to convince companies to let the movie use their names and products in jokes connected to its unusual premise.

One Night Only takes place in a world where premarital sex is illegal except for one night each year. Because the story is set in New York City, Gluck wanted the strange rules of this fictional world to appear everywhere, including on signs, advertisements and products around the city.

That meant the filmmakers needed permission from companies before changing their advertising or putting their products into the fictional world of the movie.

Gluck said people online had assumed that companies must have paid the production to feature their products. According to the director, the reality was completely different.

“It was the opposite. We had to beg products to allow us to take them and twist it to the ‘one night,’” Gluck told Variety.

He said not every company was comfortable with the idea, which made the approval process surprisingly difficult. The production created a large list of potential brands and began asking them if they would allow their products to appear in the movie with a new twist.

“Because, as you can imagine, not every corporate America consumer product was into this idea,” Gluck explained.

The director also pushed back against claims that companies such as Dunkin and Durex had made money from their appearances. He said the production did not receive money from those brands simply for featuring them.

“When I read stuff, like, ‘How much money did they get from Dunkin or Durex?’ I’m like ‘Nothing!’” Gluck said.

Getting permission was important because the filmmakers were not simply showing products as they exist in everyday life. They were creating fake advertisements and changing the way some brands were presented.

Gluck explained that while a real product can appear naturally in a movie, filmmakers cannot simply take an existing advertisement and alter it without permission.

That led to plenty of rejections. “We had a big list and it was ‘no, no, no, no,’” Gluck said.

Some of the companies that eventually agreed included Duolingo, Red Bull, Dunkin and Equinox. Gluck admitted that he was particularly surprised when Duolingo gave the production permission. “That was a shock. I was like, ‘Really?’” he said.

Even after a company agreed, there was another step. The brands still had to approve the specific version of the joke or advertisement that appeared in the movie.

For Gluck, those fake ads were an important part of building the world of One Night Only. Instead of explaining every rule through dialogue, he wanted viewers to see how the strange law had changed everyday life.

The result is a movie filled with fictional advertising and real-world brands that had to give the filmmakers permission to play with their image.

So while some viewers may assume the product appearances are another example of Hollywood advertising deals, Gluck says the truth was far less glamorous. The director wasn’t collecting checks from brands. He was trying to convince them to let him make them part of the joke.

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