The Landlord, the showcase clip on Will Ferrell's new comedy site, has clocked an impressive 2 million downloads since it went up on Thursday. It looks like the comic actor, star of movies such as the Wedding Crashers and Blades of Glory, has, with the Funny or Die property, a web hit on his hands. As does Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm which quietly backed the online comedy project. Sand Hill Road used to shy away from entertainment businesses, which depend on capricious stars and fickle audiences. At this rate, they'll be waiting, like the Hollywood studios they used to despise, for the opening night numbers whenever a new site goes live.

Contact information for this author is not available.