By now you've probably seen Will Ferrell's Internet clip "The Landlord". The clip was released last Thursday on the site Funny Or Die and has been viewed over 2 million times already - in less then a week. What you may not know is that Funny Or Die is actually Will Ferrell's and Adam McKay's own comedy website and it received funding from Silicon Valley's famous venture firm, Sequoia Capital.

This is really a genius move by Ferrell. Funny Or Die is a pretty bare-bones YouTube knock-off and after the initial investment, Ferrell, McKay, and Sequoia could stand to makes millions off the site. Will this be the start of A-List Hollywood actors moving online with small side projects to raise some quick money?

It seems that in recent years top Hollywood actors have really eased up on only appearing in feature films to protect their image. Remember when no Hollywood actors were doing commercials in America, while they would do them like crazy in place like Japan? Well, now we have Catherine Zeta-Jones on TV every second pitching T-Mobile, Brad Pitt selling Heineken, and George Clooney's voice on at least a half-dozen commercials.

Without the fear of harming their reputation and seeing the power of viral video, I see many more top-level stars trying their hand at online projects.

My guess is that Ferrell and McKay made "The Landlord" simply to jumpstart Funny Or Die's user-submissions by getting some eyeballs to the site. Now that they've seen that they can reach 2 million eyeballs in five days, the idea may expand.

The question is how will this effect the current stars of online video, the regular folk? Will there be a shift to more professional productions on sites like YouTube? There are certainly enough eyeballs on these sites to share the wealth, but just as rarely do people go to see movies with no name stars in them, will they start to drift away from online videos without some marquee name?

It's unlikely, but a thought. Hollywood is moving in; they smell money in the water.