Ed Norton and Cameron Diaz in Boo.com: The Movie.

August 28, 2001 9:23 AM

Ed Norton and Cameron Diaz in Boo.com: The Movie. Why, god, why? Can any good come of such a thing?
posted by Sapphireblue (23 comments total)

It's going to come off like those SUN commercials. You know, the ones made to look like real movies:

Norton: Debbie, we've got to get the server ONLINE!

Diaz: But Jim, what about the FIREWALL???
posted by jpoulos at 9:34 AM on August 28, 2001

I have to admit, I'm intrigued. I'd like to see this movie. (But then again I also made the mistake of seeing Ghost of Mars recently too).
posted by woodge at 9:40 AM on August 28, 2001

I think it could possibly be a decent movie. But being that they have yet to actually even sell the rights to the story, I won't be holding my breath (and just because someone approached ed norton and cameron diaz doesn't mean either of them expressed interest...) Bah. There are worse things in development...
posted by tallman at 9:45 AM on August 28, 2001

I can't wait for the scene where the investors beat Diaz and Norton to death with shovels.
posted by Skot at 9:48 AM on August 28, 2001

They could call it "Dumb and Dumber" -- oh wait, that's already a movie.
posted by jacknose at 9:51 AM on August 28, 2001

Ed Norton just hasn't been as good since he split up with Ralph Kramden.
posted by briank at 9:57 AM on August 28, 2001

"Charlie's Angels", given the amount of gak those two subsisted on.


I'll only watch it if James Cronin gets to play himself. ;)
posted by holgate at 10:00 AM on August 28, 2001

Norton: Debbie, we've got to get the server ONLINE!
Diaz: But Jim, what about the FIREWALL???

I suspect that the founders talked more about cocaine and idiot investors than about tech.
posted by rdr at 10:07 AM on August 28, 2001

Sounds like Startup.com (part II).
posted by kpett at 10:14 AM on August 28, 2001

The article and the movie idea are both as ridiculous as the actual company was....
posted by Jako at 10:16 AM on August 28, 2001

Sounds just as ridiculous as Pardon My Zinger.
posted by LeiaS at 10:39 AM on August 28, 2001

It doesn't matter how much money they lose through their bad ideas, fuckers like this always come out on top.

I hope it's a flop.
posted by dydecker at 10:46 AM on August 28, 2001

I could watch Edward Norton brush his teeth for two hours and come away content that my $7.50 was well spent.
posted by brittney at 12:19 PM on August 28, 2001

The story about the story about the founders of Boo.com sounds as overhyped as its ostensible subject matter. It's like they still believe their PR even in ignominy: "Well, at least we're famous for losing that much money."

I'd never heard of half the stuff in this story, the behind-the-scenes elements like 40 Gurkha bodyguards who, even unpaid, were still loyal enough to bar the doors to the foreclosure auditors. In a sense it could make an interesting movie, except that the story is now so common and rife with 20/20 hindsight conventional wisdom as to be banal.
posted by dhartung at 1:31 PM on August 28, 2001

Not Startup.com-like at all, really---

That movie was a documentary, made by the roommate of the founder of the company whose flameout the movie detailed, complete with cruddy production values and real people from the companies involved. Also, the documentary started filming long before the flameout happened; I believe the filmmaker originally thought she was going to make a movie about The Next Big Thing. Lastly, no one snorted coke in Startup.com. Not onscreen, anyway.

If this movie gets made, it'll be "Hollywood gets pretty people to play dot-commers for the amusement of middlebrow America, which adores cute movie stars and resents moneyed Gen-Xers and secretly thought that Internet thing was just a bunch of hooey all along."
posted by Sapphireblue at 1:36 PM on August 28, 2001

Seriously, though, they can talk all they want, but this'll die in development. No one's gonna see a movie about a failed dot-com.
posted by solistrato at 1:47 PM on August 28, 2001

Solistrato stands corrected.

It was actually going to be a documentary of a successful dotcom startup. Heh.
posted by Down10 at 1:59 PM on August 28, 2001

britney stole my comment.
posted by jcterminal at 2:15 PM on August 28, 2001

I like snarky black comedies. Don't care what they're about. Even if this project makes it all the way through development and remains a serious movie, it still won't play that way... this could be the Reefer Madness of 2002.
posted by kevspace at 2:20 PM on August 28, 2001

Startup.com didn't exactly give American Pie 2 anything to worry about. I am not corrected. :P
posted by solistrato at 2:22 PM on August 28, 2001

is this that onion movie we were talking about the other day? heh.
posted by sugarfish at 3:06 PM on August 28, 2001

Sounds like it's got more chance of being a good movie than Tomb Raider, PotA and Dinosaurs R us III put together. Diaz and Norton are actually quite good actors -- catch her in Being John Malkovich and you'll see what I mean.
posted by krisjohn at 4:17 PM on August 28, 2001

I'll second Holgate that James has to play himself in this movie.

Considering how good Ernst and Kajsa are at PR, I expect the noise to get only stronger. Let's admit it right here and now, those guys could sell snow to eskimos...

TNL

PS: I'm a former Boo employee but strangely enough, not a disgruntled one. I think we built some really cool stuff there and I had a lot of fun being associated with the project, even if it failed.
posted by TNLNYC at 5:50 AM on August 29, 2001