2 guys, 1 cup – Hollywood Meets ‘Net, Again

John Mayer, on Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s brainchild funnyordie.com, has released a parody of the now notorious 2 girls, 1 cup video. Out of respect for y’all I’m NOT linking to the 2 girls site, if you want to see it look it up yourself (which you shouldn’t, but damn it it’s like the worst car crash you’ve ever seen and you just can’t look away). You know you’ve made it as a viral video when celebrities are parodying you.

I think it’s so interesting that the internet allows for, or is encouraging, classic celebrities — i.e. those from Hollywood or the offline music world — to also form an online presence, after some of these viral videos and memes have become accidentally more famous among our generation. Part of Funnyordie’s niche in the internet world is that it bridges the gap between old school and new school celebrities. I mean, you can find videos on the site from Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Bill Murray, Danny DeVito, Willem Defoe, and others. Maybe this whole thing is some kind of adaptation to our increasingly internet-oriented world. Young Hollywood, at least, is starting to get it.

I mean, the Landlord video alone has something like 40 50 million views and basically took no money and little effort to make (I’m presuming these facts; unless you think that asking a two year old to get her drink on takes any effort). Compare that to a film with a $50 million budget that grosses $150 million, and that takes maybe six months to a year to film; more time than that for pre- and post-production stuff like writing and editing. Not to mention promotion and marketing of the film. Side note: if anyone’s watched NBC in the past two months or so, you probably know more about Bee Movie and Jerry Seinfeld than you ever wanted to. Sometimes you know exactly how much a movie is going to suck by the lengths they go to to make sure you’ve heard of it. Same goes for License to Wed (sorry, John Krasinski, but it did suck).

But anyway — both are arguably different kinds of fame, but internet celebrity and Hollywood are starting to cross over like whoa. What’s going to happen to the big budget, highly promoted film if a video that takes two days and no cash to make generates more, though admittedly different, consumer interest? I think it’s ridiculous to say that Hollywood films are going to fall by the wayside because of the internet, but there’s something going on that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Consider another question: if you’re a marketer for a company that wants some product placement somewhere — I was just watching Pulp Fiction the other night, and in the famous OD scene, the Game of Life and Operation were on a table, which was hilarious and entirely appropriate — where are you going to put your product? Low-budget viral video or the next movie from the Brat Pack?

Comment if you have thoughts! We want some chatting on the blog going on.