Jeep Spent $44 Million Promoting Wrangler in Tomb Raider Film
Other than building 1,001 special Wrangler Tomb Raider models, Jeep created a complete marketing campaign supporting its movie appearance.
A full 20 years ago – in May 2003 – Jeep unveiled the limited-edition Wrangler Rubicon Tomb Raider edition model, which coincided with the release of the movie Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. It was the perfect product tie-in given the fact that the movie’s main character – Lara Croft, played by Angelina Jolie – also drives a custom Wrangler Rubicon in the movie, but this campaign went far beyond just a special model – rather, Jeep forged an entire 360-degree integrated marketing campaign around the movie, which apparently cost a pretty penny to do, according to FandomWire.
Along with the 1,001 units of the Wrangler Rubicon Tomb Raider that Jeep put together to celebrate its appearance in the film, Jeep also sunk more money into constructing three for the movie alone, plus the massive marketing campaign that accompanied it. The total cost of all of this came in at a whopping $44 million, which is astounding given the fact that the movie itself enjoyed a budget that was roughly double that.
After grossing $274 million, however, this particular installment of the Tomb Raider franchise proved to be a smash success, which undoubtedly made Jeep’s major investment worth it. For some time, that particular series was one of the hottest on planet earth, spawning even more video games that it was based on, multiple films, and countless product tie-ins such as this one.
These days, the Wrangler Rubicon Tomb Raider edition is a bit of a collectible thanks to its low production run, and it’s easy to distinguish from its regular brethren thanks to numerous unique details. Those include 16-inch Alcoa forged aluminum wheels, Tomb Raider badging, and a number of Mopar accessories including a light bar, riveted fender flares, tubular grille guard, diamond plate bumper guard, rock rails, fog lamp and taillamp guards, black tubular grille guard, fog lamps with brush guards, riveted fender flares in graphite, aluminum diamond plate bumper guard in black, black rock rails, and taillamp guards.
Originally sold with an MSRP of $28,815, we don’t see too many of these special Jeep models pop up at auction very often, but they also don’t exactly command huge money there, either, with sales ranging from $16k to $25k in recent years. However, it’s a cool, niche model worth seeking out, particularly for those that are fans of the movie that inspired it.
Photos: Jeep
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