Speed Racer

[Krug]

Not a good start to the box-office, especially when you can't even get the #2 slot on your opening day.

http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/video/video_display.shtml#mea=248965

Paramount's "Iron Man" continued to hammer out box office gold in its second Friday of the summer season with $15.3 million, however, Fox-Regency's "What Happens in Vegas" trumped Warner Bros.' "Speed Racer" for second place.

Playing at 4,111 sites, "Iron Man's" second Friday reps the third best among Marvel's titles in May behind "Spider-Man's" $19.9 million in 2002 and "Spider-Man 3's" $17.2 million last year. Both pics respectively posted second weekend hauls of $71.4 million and $58.2 million. Through its first eight days, the domestic B.O. for "Iron Man" currently stands at $141.9 million.

Grossing $7.2 million from 3,215 locations, "Vegas" repped an opening day high for a romantic comedy in May, besting the $6.5 million charted by 1999's "Notting Hill" which went on to generate a three-day take of $21.8 million.

The Wachowski Brothers' "Speed Racer" slotted third on Friday with $6.2 million from 3,606 sites. Despite the pic's soft start, "Racer" still has an eye on arriving in second place once the checkered flag is waved at the weekend box office.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Can any of our resident Hollywood insiders offer some insight as to what the expectations around tinseltown are for this flick? I'm a little young to have caught Speed Racer when it was on TV, so this movie is at best a DVD rental somewhere down the road. Is opening in second where they figured it would land?

 

[Krug]

I'm no insider, but it looks headed for a $20 mil weekend, and finishing behind or close to a Ashton Kutchner comedy probably wasn't in the plans for a Wachowski film.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

The film cost $120 million to make. A $20 million opening is pretty much a failure. Overseas revenue and DVDs could push it to black, but not at the margin that a $100+ million movie is supposed to make.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The problem, lack of a big named star and poor marketing. This was to be a summer block buster and yet did not have one big name A-list star attached to it, not even a B-list (Mattew Fox is C-List at best, does well on TV, no break out movies). Then there was marketing, action, live-action anime, special effects, kid movie, from the makers of the Matrix, just what was it?

I just have to wonder if this will hurt the Ninja scroll movie.

 

[Krug]

I agree. The trailer doesn't promote it as a kid's movie. More like a racing movie targeted at teens and the 20ish crowd. With the more family-friendly Prince Caspian opening next week I don't think Speed Racer is going to have much of a chance at the box-office.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The film cost $120 million to make. A $20 million opening is pretty much a failure. Overseas revenue and DVDs could push it to black, but not at the margin that a $100+ million movie is supposed to make.

The scale for profit is normally just limited to domestic dollars but more and more seem to be going worldwide. DVDs are not counted at all, this is because of flakey tax stuff and distribution.

 

[Mallus]

The film deserves better!

I caught Speed Racer w/two of my buddies Saturday afternoon and we were all varying degrees of impressed. Overall it's a lot of fun. In fact, I'm fairly sure it deserves to be called revolutionary. It's a very simple story combined with sophisticated experimentation, on both the conceptual and technological fronts, in cinematic/narrative technique. Speed Racer goes way beyond simply using CGI to render impossible car physics.

It's not just the eyeball-squeezing, candy-color CGI clutter that the trailers and most reviewers make it out to be. It's sorta beautiful...

 

[Meowzebub]

I went in with low expectations. And though I grew up on watching speed racer twice a day as a kid, in hind sight, I have trouble watching its cheesiness nowadays.

That said, I throughly enjoyed it. I loved the visual mix of 1950s fashion with 2050 tech. The music was great. The sprittle-chim-chim annoyance factor was there, but almost kept to a minimum. It was like watching American Gladiators Nascar. The villains were over the top hilarious in their attempts to be spoilers in the races.

The movie was campy, but not a tongue in cheek making fun of itself sort of way. The directors built a alternate universe where with some suspension of disbelief and enjoyment of the fantasy you can share in the enjoyment. You have to be able to laugh and enjoy the spectacle of races that involve cars routinely spinning 360s, jumping, riding up walls, and avoiding giant spikes.

And Matthew Fox, in spite of his above-mentions C-list status, was Racer-X - one of the most Iconic Characters in my Mythos of Heroes growing up. Hell, my friends all wanted to be Speed Racer when I was growing up, but it was Racer-X for me. I was glad to see a good representation of him.

Mystery Men comes to mind when I think of this movie in retrospect. The alternate reality, crazy villains, and under-appriciated at the box office.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

And Matthew Fox, in spite of his above-mentions C-list status, was Racer-X - one of the most Iconic Characters in my Mythos of Heroes growing up. Hell, my friends all wanted to be Speed Racer when I was growing up, but it was Racer-X for me. I was glad to see a good representation of him.

My desire to see this movie is based entirely on growing up considering Racer X to be the absolute definition of awesome.

...course, I still haven't gone and seen it yet, but that's a money issue. Still, Racer X!