Ever seen a movie based on a Craigslist ad? Well guess what, the folks at 20th Century Fox have gone and made one. That might sound weird, but a couple of years back some guy made a movie based on a classified ad from the ’90s that was so good, he was then given the job of making Jurassic World. Text-based classified ads are the new novels in the world of cinematic source material.
And the Craigslist ad wasn’t just any Craigslist ad. It’s in the illustrious Best Of Craigslist section, an honour which currently has only been awarded to 4951 lucky ads. That’s literally thousands of other potential movies Fox will be looking at should Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates become a hit.
The ad was titled ‘Two men need wedding dates’, which is fairly to-the-point. The two men needing dates were Mike and Dave, a couple of simple dudebros who enjoy booze, parties, the ladies and booze. An unfortunate friend of theirs was getting married and rather have them embarrassingly sleaze all over female wedding guests, he demanded they bring dates. To do that, the normally long-term-partner-averse Mike and Dave skulled back a few Budweisers and allowed the American ingenuity to flow. Sitting down at a computer, the pair then published an online ad that would live on in infamy.
The message is unmistakably obnoxious and sexist in nature, but it nonetheless won the hearts of a great many internet users. Highlights include boasting that they’re white in between “dashingly tall” and “respectfully athletic”, and warning prospective partners they “should be attractive or our aunts will judge you, but not TOO attractive or one of our uncles might grope you.”
Maybe it’s because of just how douchey this whole thing is that somehow made it so endearing. Reading it immediately gave me visions of guys who aggressively play beer pong and do keg stands with their tops off and baseball caps backwards, all the while yelling so much you can barely hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers they’re playing.
To seal the deal, they included photos to reinforce the image they’d created of themselves in the text. The primary one is their faces crudely Photoshopped on to centaurs, in front of the US Constitution. USA! USA! USA!
Mainly thanks to Reddit, the ad went viral, and Mike and Dave capitalised on it well – maybe not as well as Psy but definitely better than that Nek Minnit guy. In a world where Kim Kardashian is an idolised celebrity and Donald Trump has a genuine shot at becoming US President, the Craigslist ad these two fools posted landed them spots on shows including Today, Good Morning America and Anderson Cooper.
Their 15 minutes of fame should have probably quickly dried up, but somehow these schmucks wrought more out of it. They sold a book proposal to a publisher who then released almighty literary tome Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: And a Thousand Cocktails. Mike and Dave reckon it’s “kind of like [HBO show] Girls, but for boys, and girls”, and combines “really funny experiences with brutal honesty from a completely unfiltered male perspective.” Yeah.
You can read excerpts from the book on its Amazon page -the long and short of it is: it’s not good. But some people in this world are just born lucky; they’re always going to be winners, no matter what losers they are. That’s where Fox came in, paying an undisclosed sum for the screen rights to Mike and Dave’s Craigslist ad.
The big screen adaptation of the 478 word online post reunites Zac Efron and Aubrey Plaza, stars of four-star critical smash comedy Dirty Grandpa and chucks in Pitch Perfect‘s Anna Kendrick and Adam DeVine of TV’s Workaholics. It looks to be a joyful ode to stupidity and the excesses of contemporary America.
Although Mike and Dave are recreated onscreen with an earnest authenticity, the writers used poetic license with regards to the two women that wound up being their wedding dates. In the film, Tatiana and Alice fool the boys into thinking they’re respectable ladies, but as soon as they get to Hawaii reveal themselves to be even more wild and unhinged as they are, says Fox in publicity material.
The raunchy, R-rated comedy based on a Craigslist ad will be released on July 7.
‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates’ info including session times (if available)
