Walmart challenged directors Nancy Meyers, Melissa McCarthy and Dee Rees to create a 60-second film inspired by the Walmart delivery box and shows people what they created in dedicated ads, which premiered on Oscars Sunday.
Melissa McCarty, who accepted the challenge arguing that it’s amazing to see how three people see the same things, came up with a film whose protagonist is Tony Award-nominated actress Keala Settle, who, after losing the subway, enters a Walmart Box placed on the platform and then is transported back in time, when she was a teenage girl, ready to sing on a scene and to whom she whispers something in the ear when the kids in the audience are booing at her. Her performance of Sia’s “Bird Set Free”, which continues with Keala as an adult, gets rounds of applause.
Once she no longer needs the Walmart box, she leaves it on a bench, at a bus stop, to someone who she thinks might need a boost of confidence.
Rees, Mudbound director, worked with several of her Mudbound collaborators, like Mary J. Blige and Rachel Morrison for her short film. Nancy Meyers created a short starring composer Hans Zimmerman and P.J. Byrne.
This is not the first time the retailer has worked with filmmakers to create short films to air during the Oscars. In 2017, Antoine Fuqua, Marc Forster and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg created short films (the short film concept was developed by Saatchi & Saatchi in New York) that premiered on Oscars night.
