Prem wrote last week about Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds calling a “truce” and agreeing to cross-promote Hugh’s coffee and Ryan’s gin. Not that anyone actually believed that there really was a “feud”. As a joint marketing plan though, for their respective brands, it’s a fun bit. Especially since the real motivation here is to sell their products. This isn’t for a movie, and it’s not for sh-ts and giggles – it’s money, it’s business. What they’re doing here is using their personal relationship and the lure of celebrity friendship to generate sales, though it goes down so much easier when it’s so much fun.
So here they are, side by side, presenting the ads they each filmed in support of the other’s company. Ryan goes first and actually delivers a pretty good commercial. The voiceover is a little extra in its obsequiousness but that’s what he was going for – over the top sincerity. And he’s the smartass between the two. So that’s what they’re playing on, a reversal of their reputations. Because, as is well-known, both in and out of the industry, Hugh is known as the nicest. No one is nicer than he is. There has never been a story about him being a dick, about him being unkind, about his ego getting out of control. That’s how Anne Hathaway honoured him a couple of months ago at the Hollywood Film Awards, mocking how unrealistically, almost unbelievably decent he is, to the point where even when he’s at his “worst”, she was like…seriously? Is that all you got?
Well, yeah, to everyone in the world with one exception: Ryan Reynolds.
It’s a nice touch when he flicks the bottle cap, non?
So… how much more of this do you want? Like years and years of it, the way Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel have continued their thing for, what?, it must be a decade or longer now, right? I’m kind of tired of Matt and Jimmy but you can’t deny that they’ve somehow found all kinds of ways to keep drawing it out. No doubt Hugh and Ryan are capable of the same. Just not sure if I can see them doing that though. Not if they want to make another movie together. Because at some point it becomes oversaturation. Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe no one can ever get enough. Right now, it really is charming AF. And it goes back to a long time ago, when they first worked together, when Ryan was not as, let’s say, congenial as he is now, and it was Hugh who set the example for him – to his credit he saw what was being modelled and responded and adapted. If only Hugh could have that effect on everyone.