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F
irst things first: the wedding
that forms the basis of the
comedy
Mike and Dave Need
Wedding Dates
was for the Stangles’
cousin, not their sister, it didn’t take place in
Hawaii, and, unlike the movie, it actually went
off without a hitch.
Nevertheless, the real-life Mike and Dave
Stangle insist that the film is still pretty
faithful to the events leading up to the ill-
fated nuptials depicted in the movie.
“I think the film was pretty accurate
with the facts, actually, until they got to
Hawaii – that whole part didn’t happen,”
Mike explains. “But we thought the movie
was really well done and it captured what was
so fun about the original Craigslist ad – and
that was Dave and I getting into this ridiculous
situation together, which was a legitimate
excuse to go on hundreds of double dates.
It’s obviously a bit exaggerated, but the fun
we had with it was remembering this actually
happened to us. In the movie it’s just a better-
looking version of us.”
Adds Dave: “They very much captured
our characters, which we love. Anyone who
knows us, when they see the movie, they will
very much know that they nailed exactly how
we are.”
The unlikely inspiration for the comedy was
the aforementioned Craiglist ad posted by the
two siblings in February 2013, which depicted
the pair as centaurs and outlined how they
needed dates for the cousin’s wedding to
ensure that they wouldn’t spoil things by
harassing the bride’s friends all night and
generally behaving badly.
Describing themselves as “single, dashingly
tall, Anglo-Saxon,” and “completely house
trained,” their irreverent ad became a viral
phenomenon all over the globe, much to the
brothers’ surprise.
“I don’t know why it went so crazy, but
it had a snowball effect,” recalls Dave.
“The more people talked about it, or
the more their friends talked about it, the
bigger it got. It went international. We were
on the Australian
Today Show
. We were
getting emails from people in every different
country.”
That said, the Stangles clearly believed their
story had movie potential: in the ad, the boys
reckoned they had an 85 per cent chance
of their story becoming a movie, although
they said, “we refuse the right to let
Ashton Kutcher play either one of us.”
So how did they feel about Zac Efron
and Adam Devine, who ended up playing
them on screen? “The writers had actors
in mind while they were writing and while
they were emailing and meeting with us,”
Mike says. “First Zac signed on, and we were
both totally turned on immediately, and then
Adam came in. I forget the exact order, but it
did seem like it was getting better and better,
and kind of more unbelievable, as the casting
played out. We didn’t have a ton to do with
the selection, we were just super excited.”
As for their characters’ dates – played in the
movie by Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick– in
real life, the brothers didn’t end up taking
any of the girls who applied for the ad to the
wedding. However, they did go on a lot of
dates and their experiences also found their
way into the movie.
“We had thousands and thousands of
women emailing us in the first week,”
Dave says. “We did what any two
single brothers in their 20s would do,
which is pick the best looking, most
interesting ones, and go on double dates
with them. And it got really addictive, and
that’s really where the basis of much of
the story came from.
“In the end we didn’t
take any of the Craiglist
girls to the wedding,
but everything that
manifests through Aubrey
and Anna’s characters in
the last two acts of the movie really
manifested for us in all these double
dates we went on.”
HUMOUR
IN HAWAII
Forgetting Sarah
Marshall
(2008)
In what is probably the best
rom-com to be set in the island
paradise, writer-star Jason Segel
follows his ex
Kristen Bell and
her beau (a scene
stealing Russell
Brand) to Hawaii,
and falls
instead
for Mila
Kunis.
The Descendants
(2011)
Director Alexander Payne and
co-writers Jim Rash and Nat
Faxon deservedly won an Oscar
for this melancholic but warm
and wryly funny comedy about
a wealthy landowner (George
Clooney) trying to reconnect with
his kids.
Aloha
(2015)
OK, this whimsical comedy about
a one-time navy pilot isn’t one of
Cameron Crowe’s best, but the
all-star cast – Bradley Cooper,
Emma Stone, Bill Murray, Rachel
McAdams – make it worth a look.
It’s better than Adam Sandler’s
Hawaiian comedies at least.
•
Mike and
Dave Need
Wedding Dates
is out
on Nov 9