Will Ferrell and the End of Media as We Know It - Portfolio
Hollywood’s screwball king and the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital are rewriting the rules of the entertainment business. But will Funny or Die survive?
The face that launched 50 million hits has cherubic cheeks, golden curls, and a gaze that’s innocent yet mischievous. It belongs to Pearl McKay, a two-year-old whose father, Adam, directed and co-wrote the Will Ferrell hits Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Pearl’s old man and Ferrell are partners in Funny or Die (funnyordie.com), a video-sharing website that Sequoia Capital, the site’s financial backer, envisions as the flagship of an internet armada capable of sinking old media. (View slideshow.)
Funny or Die is being touted as the first successful collaboration between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, the first time top-tier Hollywood talent (Ferrell, McKay) has been paired with comparable engineering know-how (the site loads as fast as YouTube) and shrewd investment muscle (Sequoia). The portal made its debut in April 2007 with a dozen offerings—one was an ersatz sketch featuring Ferrell and Pearl, who was fed lines off-camera by her parents. Improvised at Ferrell’s home following his son’s third-birthday party, the two-minute video has since become the site’s cyberboon—and bane. Pearl plays a boozy, tyrannical landlord who demands that her delinquent tenant (Ferrell) pay his rent. “I want my money!” she screams, before burbling a string of expletives that are helpfully subtitled. “I need to get my drink on!”
1 response so far ↓
1 Chan // Jan 3, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Its best media blog. It gives us Pearl’s old man and Ferrell are partners in Funny or Die (funnyordie.com), a video-sharing website that Sequoia Capital, the site’s financial backer, envisions as the flagship of an internet armada capable of sinking old media.
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