Blog August 6, 2012

Containers at the movies

By Nicola Byers

If you’re like me and love the magic of the big screen, then I’m sure you will have noticed the rise of a new type of actor. Often seen shielding others from a hail of bullets, or smuggling doomsday weapons to exotic locations, the Box Container is taking Hollywood by storm. This stern faced broad shouldered hero is tougher than the Terminator and braver than Batman. Even more impressive is the range of character acting being explored. Take a look at these examples from some of the biggest films in the past decade.

In Castaway we see an early example (pictured above). Amongst the rescuing party are two Carlisle Leasing (now SeaCube Container Leasing Ltd) reefer containers. Now I don’t suppose any one has ever been so happy to see a container as Chuck Nolan (played by Tom Hanks) was in that moment. Credit goes to Ian, the development manager here at MRI for spotting this one! The team were excited to see an MRI customer in such a blockbuster movie!

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Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg, has certainly made full use of the container here. What a starring role! If only the container actor could speak. It could have alerted the ship’s captain to where the smuggled goods were! We spotted a Textainer container in the background of this scene

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War of the Worlds was a less important role for the box container but we couldn’t leave this one out. After their success in other movies, a big character building scene gives a group of containers the chance to work with a true A-lister, Tom Cruise himself! If you look carfully, you’ll spot a CMA CGM container in the background embracing the role of an extra!

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Now I know no one wants to go back to the old days where if there was a container in the movie you knew it was going to be blown up at some point, but you have to give credit where its due. The final scenes of the A-team show some of the most spectacular pyrotechnics and stunt acting like I’ve never seen. You can see here a GESeaco (now Seaco Global Ltd) container trembling at the thought of an imminent explosion!

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The most recent film Step Up 4 takes the Box Container to a whole new level of fame. No more of this background work or wanton destruction but a group of containers take centre stage for a whole dance routine! The Triton container to the right was particularly good at getting some face time in this movie!

This list is by no means complete and from here I can only see things getting bigger and better for the container. Who knows how far they’ll come by this time next year? If anyone else has spotted a container making its mark in cinema please leave a comment here at Intermodal Eye.