Stand by for the Google movie! Surprise, you're not too old at 40!
Google has been much in the headlines recently , mainly with questions about its taxes, but this week ,the company is the star of a movie.
The film, The Internship, due out in the US June 7 and starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, is the first time the company has allowed
a feature film crew to shoot at its California HQ, for five days in all.
Google also provided about 100 employee extras—including co-founder Sergey Brin, on an elliptical bicycle in the background of one scene, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The movie is a reunion for the two stars of the "Wedding Crashers." It tells the story of a couple of smooth-talking 40-something watch salesmen who attempt to restart their careers after their company folds by applying for internships at Google.
"Despite their advanced age and complete technological ineptitude, the guys manage to make it through the company's notoriously rigorous interview process by exploiting their signature blend of charisma and humour," says theWSJ.
Asked how they might escape from a blender after being shrunk to the height of a nickel—a classic Google question requiring knowledge of basic physics to answer—they tug at their interviewers' heart strings. "We're in the blender," they say, referring to the horrible economic conditions that surround them.
Executives also worked closely with director Shawn Levy to provide technologically accurate details, such as the type of data that a sales team would use to convince a local pizzeria to buy its advertising tools.
The filmmakers created an exact replica of Google's Mountain View headquarters at the Georgia Tech campus, where most of the interior scenes were shot.
"Literally right down to everything you see on every white board was photographed at Google and recreated precisely on our set," said Levy.
When he visited Google last year, director Levy told executives, including Lorraine Twohill, the company's marketing chief who oversaw the collaboration: "I don't know if this movie is going to be R or PG-13, but I can promise you it's going to be funny and audacious and have an ultimately aspirational heart."
His respectful handling of the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Natural History in his previous "Night at the Museum" films gave the company confidence that he wouldn't "betray the brand," said Levy.
Executives were allowed to read the screenplay , see the film's final cut, and make comments. When the filmmakers wanted to introduce a scene in which Google's self-driving car gets into a wreck, Google objected and the crash was cut.
In general, though, the company agreed to give the filmmakers creative freedom, said Levy. He added that "no money changed hands" between Google and 20th Century Fox, the film's distributor.
When real brands are used as a backdrop in movies, said the WSJ, they are often not portrayed in a flattering light—and the companies rarely cooperate as a result.
But Google CEO Larry Page has said the film could help get young people excited about technology. "Computer science has a marketing problem—we're the nerdy curmudgeons," he said.
He was pleased that top Google Web-search executive Amit Singhal, portrayed in the movie by Josh Gad ("Book of Mormon") as a loner named Headphones, was "the coolest character in the movie."
Google's "creative lab,"came up with an idea for the movie's end credits, mirroring existing ads for Google Apps.
The company doesn't plan to promote the film except on the "careers" section of its corporate website .
In real life, says the WSJ "two out-of-work salesmen probably wouldn't make it into Google's internship program," which selects 1,500 students out of 40,000 applicants every year.