THEY will not be coming to a cinema near you. But movie spoofs or spoof trailers are definitely 'now showing' on the Internet, and some are even more famous than the movies they satirise.
The spoof trailer phenomenon is a recent one and became all the rage when Lee Ang's Brokeback Mountain - a love story about two gay cowboys - triggered the creation of scores of spoofs on the Internet.
One such attempt was Brokeback To The Future, a movie trailer parody on both Brokeback Mountain and the Back to the Future trilogy. The video - which was put together overnight by two Emerson College students and released in January this year - has a total view count of close to five million on video hosting sites such as youtube.com and ifilm.com.
Other Brokeback Mountain parody titles include Spongeback Mountain and Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback.
The popularity of such spoofs can be attributed to several developments on the Web.
Firstly broadband Internet has made downloading or online streaming of videos quick and easy, which explains the popularity of these amateur online videos.
Although Internet spoofs and other amateur short films can be traced back to the year 2000, the first one to really make an impact was Shining, a spoof on the 1980 horror movie, The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson.
Hailed by the online community as the 'grandfather of movie trailer parodies', it was created last year by Robert Ryang, a 26-year-old graduate of Columbia University in New York.
Another factor contributing to the spoof boom is cost. These films can be shot on a shoe-string as they use simple video editing software.
Just about anybody with access to this software can create short films. Trial downloads of editing software such as Adobe After Effects are readily available on the Internet.
While some films float unnoticed in cyberspace, others have shot to fame.
One of the hottest clips at the moment is a send-up of The X-Men.
Made by two university students living in Chicago, the nine-minute clip, entitled I'm The Juggernaut, Bitch was released in February this year by Xavier Nazario and Randy Hayes, who are both 21.
The video, which can be found on youtube.com, ifilm.com and brettratner.com, has already had three million hits. It shows Juggernaut going on a rampage which leads to a fight scene between him and the X-Men. The voices of all the characters have been dubbed with crude but comedic street talk by the creators. The spoof was so well received that even director Brett Ratner paid tribute to it by using the line 'I'm the Juggernaut, bitch' in his current movie X-Men: The Last Stand.
'We never expected anything but a couple of comments here and there, the line in the X-Men three movie is the biggest surprise. We never imagined (the video) would get that famous,' says Xavier in an e-mail interview with The Sunday Times.
Unlike most movie parodies, which are made using clips of the original movie, the Juggernaut is a dubbed version of an episode of the old X-Men cartoon - The Phoenix Saga Part Three: Cry Of The Banshee.
More ambitious parody film-makers rope in an entire cast and crew to create their spoofs from scratch.
That's what the creators of the Norman Rockwell Code, which is a spoof on the movie, The Da Vinci Code, have done. Based on Dan Brown's bestseller, the movie suggests that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that one of the clues is hidden in Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, The Last Supper.
The satire's plot, meanwhile, revolves around the paintings of the late American painter, Norman Rockwell. Creators Marc Dole and Alfred Thomas Catalfo are already in the movie production business and managed to make it with the help of friends, at no cost.
Mr Dole told The Sunday Times that spoofs are easier to create because they play on a story people already know, and so they can be made into a short and identifiable format.
Their site, thenormanrockwellcode.com, gets 25,000 hits a day.
Even Singaporeans have got in on the act.
The Sunday Times tracked down a 10-minute animated version of the bully brawl scene - where Neo is attacked by multiple clones of Agent Smith - in the Matrix Reloaded, done by two polytechnic students as part of their final-year project.
Search for 'The Bully Brawl' on youtube.com to watch it and you will get a chance to hear Neo saying his lines in a Singaporean accent. The creators apparently did their own voice dubbing.
These Internet spoofs may have gained a lot of positive media attention, but the creators only had entertainment and not fame in mind.
A few good laughs
A 10 Things I Hate About Commandments
A trailer spoof on the 1991 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You. It uses clips from the movie The Ten Commandments but Moses becomes the boy who 'tries to get the girl'. Found on http://youtube.com .
A Lord Of The Rings - in Hokkien
A spoof of the scene featuring dialogue between Frodo and Gollum. Only this time, Frodo declares his love for the 'beautiful' Gollum, in Hokkien. Found on http://youtube.com
A Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback
This parody showcases the 'love' between C-3PO and R2-D2. The Brokeback Mountain soundtrack in the background emphasises the romantic bond between the two. Found on http://youtube.com
A The Norman Rockwell Code
A parody of The Da Vinci Code which revolves around the paintings of the late American painter Norman Rockwell. Found on http://youtube.com .
