• by Todd Wasserman , Staff Writer, July 19, 2022

Twenty years ago, movie product tie-ins were huge. The summer of 2002 saw “Spider-Man,” "Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones,"  and "Austin Powers in Goldmember," all of which featured a raft of movie tie-ins, even if not all were successful, as the  New York Times noted in this article.  

In 2022, three years into the pandemic, there are some big movies coming out, including “Jurassic World Dominion,” “Lightyear,” “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Nope,” but not many movie tie-ins.

There’s one medium in which tie-ins are still occurring, and it’s not the movies per se.

This summer, "Stranger Things" began its fourth season on Netflix. The premiere included a tie-in “Mind Ordering” from Domino’s. The promotion uses a phone’s app to recognize gestures, which the app can then interpret. For instance, users who download the app can place a real order or “Try for Fun” and discover Easter Eggs within the app. The app also includes a 20% off coupon.

That promotion is probably the biggest tie-in so far this summer and represents a paradigm shift. Will future summer movie tie-ins happen via big streaming shows, or will things revert to the way they were before the pandemic?

That’s not to say that movie tie-ins are dead: Skyy Vodka has one planned for “Nope,” and Tide recently launched one for “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness,”but Netflix is a new player in the summer tie-in arena and one that should be considered.