Rick Steves product placement......

Good catch! Perhaps one of the producers of the film is a fan of Rick Steves and decided to slip in a little "Easter egg" in the movie.

That’s hilarious! Might attract a whole new demographic to the R.S. Family!

Product placement is extra income for many productions. Most of the time, when you see a brand name product in a film, more than likely, the company has paid to be there.

However, if the product is a natural fit, it's possible no fees were paid.

So, The next time you see the star of a film drinking a Coke or checking into a particular brand of hotel that's probably fee based.

But pretending to be a tourist and holding a Rick Steves guidebook, well, that may have been a freebie.

Interesting. This doesn’t sound like Rick to me, but who knows.

I would never suspect that a Rick Steves guide toting tourist was a CIA agent!

Travel as a political act?

Obviously the RS guidebook was part of the agent's cover. Who would suspect any of us?

Would have been the director’s, a producers’s OR propmaster’s choice. A discussion about the book would have occurred.

Props can define a character and help tell the story.

Think Rosebud from Citizen Kane.

Product placement — like all brands displayed for all to see on tv or film, it was paid for by the brand. Often a worthwhile marketing expense!

Product placement — like all brands displayed for all to see on tv or film, it was paid for by the brand.

Not necessarilly. It depends on the context in which it was used.

Ironically the RS Italy guidebook doesn't cover the two small towns where most of the movie was set. However part of the movie took place in Rome so the book would have been useful for that. I vaguely recall that the CIA agent made a comment about the guidebook, but I'm not absolutely sure about that.

There's a very brief glimpse of the book at about the 40 second mark in this clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XuHQgIocBo . It's somewhat thinner than the current versions, so might be an older copy.

From what I just see, I suspect we know its a RS book but most viewers wouldn’t. Didn’t look like much of a product placement.

Coming this Christmas from the RS Store. Rick Steves Europe: Know Where To Hide When On The Run

"Think Rosebud from Citizen Kane.".

Rosebud was a MacGuffin. Probably the most famous MacGuffin in film history. Not a product placement.
The guidebook in this movie is just a prop. If it was product placement, you'd at the very least be able to see the title.

The phone call below from the location scout to their boss back in LA:

Scout: "Yeah boss. Look, I'm gonna' need at least another month here to find just the right locations."
I am done. The jealous colleagues

We were surprised (and flattered!) to see our guidebook featured in Equalizer 3 but want to clear up that our team had nothing to do with it. We would never pay for product placement, so assume it was just good judgement by the prop team on the set!

When I saw the book in the movie I though they were trying to make the agent look like a typical/confused tourist. I have never seen anyone actually carry their book when they are out and about or thumbing through it/reading it. It was a really awkward placement of the book and kinda distracting, would have been better if she was carrying a map or had a visible neck wallet or something.

After a 30 year career as a film and TV location manager/scout I can tell you ( as noted in a prior post ) that it was a prop….

So was the sleigh in Citizen Kane. So was the Maltese Falcon which definitely aided the film’s storyline.

Bonus trivia points: What Academy Award winning actor carried the Maltese Falcon into Bogie’s office?

. I have never seen anyone actually carry their book when they are out
and about or thumbing through it/reading it

Really? We've seen that frequently; often on one of the self guided walks, or while sitting at a cafe. Just one more way to tell that someone is a North American tourist.

We were in a restaurant in Varenna and counted five tables with a blue book on them. Almost like a travel group meeting.

{spoiler alert} The point of it in the plot was that it was the wrong book for where they were. A neck wallet strap or paper map might have alerted the astute RS follower, but there would be hundreds of those around, not all spies.

Looks like I am just not that observant...LOL...but seriously I have never seen it, maybe at the hotel at breakfast??

I have never seen anyone actually carry their book when they are out
and about or thumbing through it/reading it

Letizia, on this we agree. I have never seen one except in used bookstores.

Was it Walter Huston? From Canada, no less!

Bravo Susie!

Can’t take the credit. Thank Dr. Google😜

Rick is in the CIA?

Equalizer 3 is recently out on Netflix. At 57:00 into the movie, the CIA agent holds up her copy of the RS Best of Italy book and mentions having gotten a new guidebook, then tells Denzel's character what she's learned from it about the art inside the church they're standing outside of. Art with a theme that happens to tie into the central plot line.

I don't have that RS book to confirm what she said about the art, but assuming it's true, someone in props for the movie did their travel homework.

So, in the Director’s Cut of the movie, there’ll be the scene where they do Rick’s get-acquainted Town Walk.

For those who’ve never seen anybody toting an actual Rick Steves guidebook out on the street, they’ve never observed someone doing one of those walks, one of the first things in any chapter.

Well, there are another two towns that will become over touristed by Equalizer fans, and in addition to RS followers.

It could have been as much happy accident as intentional. Recently I had a wait for some service, and wound up walking into one of the larger bookstores in the US.

Naturally, I headed to the travel section, not having even been in a bookstore in years. I was at first surprised at the size, what was in my memory 3-4 shelf units of books, a real "Section", was maybe one shelf unit. My next surprise was that the number of guidebooks has declined greatly, and that the majority remaining were Rick Steves books. I think if I randomly picked a book from the 12 to 18 inches of the "Italy" row, there was about a 90% chance it would be a Rick Steves book.
I think this says more about the decline of the physical guidebook than growing dominance of the Rick Steves brand. I know Lonely Planet suffered some loss and cut way back, as have other guides. Even the RS guides have gone from a "yearly" update to infrequent editions some years ago. Most are shifting to online strategies, and at least for me, a guidebook is bought digitally, for reasons of cost, eliminating weight, and accessibility (Can access the guide on my laptop, tablet, and phone).

I have never seen anyone actually carry their book when they are out and about or thumbing through it/reading it.

Back in the mid-90's, I was on a train in Italy heading to Lake Como for several days, and noticed a woman sitting across from me on the train. She had the RS ETBD book sitting on her lap and was thumbing through it. I introduced myself and then pulled out my very same book and held it up. We both started laughing and pretty soon were chatting like we'd known each other for years.

She was Canadian and it turned out she was staying at the same hotel as me. So for the next 3-4 days, we traveled all over Lake Como together and even made a day trip into Switzerland. I kept in touch with her for years, but eventually she moved to Zanzibar and I lost track of her.

I have never seen anyone actually carry their book when they are out
and about or thumbing through it/reading it

I've lost count the number of times I've seen people with their nose in a RS guidebook. Mostly at tourist sites.

I have never seen anyone actually carry their book when they are out
and about or thumbing through it/reading it

I have definitely seen them ! And not only in Paris.

Many a time I have carried a RS book with me into a historic site and used it to read from as I was walking around. Maybe not so much out in the street, though I do recall whipping it out quickly to identify something or a quick map check. I also use Rough Guide and Lonely Planet (just bought those for Vietnam for this year's trip!)

When sitting at a cafe and looking around and see no Rick Steves guides on the tables, then you know you are truly off the beaten path.

I may have found another one....

At about the 8M:52S mark on this video during a tour of the ship's library, it certainly looks like a few familiar blue & yellow books on the shelf that's about at eye level. It's hard to tell, but I'm going to assume Cunard does have good taste in guidebooks ;-)