Google turned over its campus to star Vince Vaughn and a team of Hollywood filmmakers last week, letting them use the Silicon Valley icon for “The Internship,” a comedy about jobless, tech-challenged 40-year-olds.
The film, in which Vaughn and Owen Wilson seek coveted internships at the search-engine company, is scheduled for release next year.
Vaughn, 42, who wrote the original screenplay and pitched the idea to Google, said the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters reminded him of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.”
“It was ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ or the ‘Chocolate Factory,’” Vaughn said in an interview.
Google is “such a different place to work at than what is considered a traditional work environment, with the nap pods and the access to food, and of course the intramural sports on campus and massages and all that kind of stuff.”
Silicon Valley technology, such as Google’s YouTube, is driving change in the film industry, letting individuals produce and exhibit clips online, Vaughn said.
Google’s driverless car plays a role in the movie, and the company’s high-tech glasses may appear too, director Shawn Levy said.
“The technology that’s out there is making it less expensive and more available, which I think is terrific, because it gives more people an opportunity to express themselves,” Vaughn said.
“Trying to get the culture of Google right has been a big part of the work we’ve done,” Levy said.
While Google isn’t a financial partner in the film, Levy said co-founder Sergey Brin took an interest and hosted a dinner to talk about how the company has changed, Levy said. They’re discussing unique ways to market the film, he said.
“As he said over dinner, you either continue to evolve or you become extinct,” Levy said. “Thus the dinosaur skeleton in the quad.”