Reactions to story from Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily

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  Speed Racer Wipes Out!

  http://perezhilton.com/2008-05-10-speed-racer-wipes-out
  5 days ago in Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton · Authority: 8,330

  Speed Racer Wipes Out! Filed under: Film Flickers It's official! Speed Racer has bombed! The film took in an extremely disappointing $6.6 million on Friday. It is expected to take in an embarrassing $23-24 million for the weekend. Earlier this week,
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  Speed Racer

  http://kbweb.blogspot.com/2008/05/speed-racer.html
  2 days ago in herbie the love blog · Authority: 3

  Apparently I was the only one who thought Speed Racer looked kind of awesome. Too bad. The movie is good. Not perfect -- it's unnecessarily long, has a few clunky moments and (almost literally) climaxes in an orgasmic, oddly messianic victory sequence that recalls Neo's moment of learning to see through the Matrix -- only even more overblown, if that is even possible. It's almost too abstract at times, and the action could be a bit easier to follow, but generally you can tell what's going on when it really counts. Overall, the Wachowskis are clearly as indulgent as ever, but the results are far better here than in their awful Matrix sequels. It's dazzling, even overpowering. If you embrace the delirious excess of it all -- the impossible colors and the bombastic melodrama alike, it's great fun. And despite the feeling that certain scenes and the movie as a whole could and indeed should have been shorter, I wasn't ever actually bored. In a way, the running time befits the air of decadence that permeates everything about the movie. It's times like this that make me feel like I don't understand the world. In my mind it's ridiculous that anyone could see anything as cool and insane as the Speed Racer trailer -- packed with crazy neon cars that spin and jump and drive sideways, anime motion effects and heightened everything -- and not instantly want to see that movie. I mean, technically I can understand it. People don't like things that are too weird or cheesy or stylized, even if it is intentional. Speed Racer is plainly insane, and for a lot people that's a turn-off. I can understand that. But I can't empathize with it. --
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  Filmzee Movie Box Office Top 10 - Mon May 12, 2008

  http://filmzee.com/filmzee-movie-box-office-top-10-mon-may-1...
  3 days ago in Filmzee · Authority: 9

  Here is Filmzee’s box office top 10 list for the weekend starting Fri May 9, 2008. Titles in bold link to either a preview page on this site, a review at Film Pundits, or a profile page at IMDB. Numbers in brackets represent the previous week’s rank. (A hyphen, “-”, means a movie just opened. A tilde, “~”, means that the movie opened before this past weekend but was not in the top 10 the previous week.) [1] Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard. [-] Speed Racer. Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci. [-] What Happens in Vegas… Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher. [2] Made of Honor. Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan. [3] Baby Mama. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler. [4] Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader. [5] Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. John Cho, Kal Penn. [6] The Forbidden Kingdom. Jackie Chan, Jet Li. [7] Nim’s Island. Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, Abigail Breslin. [~] Redbelt [limited]. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tim Allen, Emily Mortimer. Of the new releases for this past weekend, Speed Racer does not deserve its #2 spot by any stretch of the imagination. (I’m surprised by the total lies positive reviews that Richard Roper and his guest gave about Speed Racer on Ebert & Roper on Sunday night.) I’m expecting it’ll be dropping down the list by next week, especially since The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian will be out. Or you could take the kids to see The Forbidden Kingdom, which is more deserving of a better ranking. (While martial arts might be considered violent by some parents, it’s almost comical when it’s not artistic, in this movie.) What Happens in Vegas…, while not a great film, is entertaining. It only missed #2 by about US$200K. One reviewer said that guys just don’t like Ashton Kutcher, and it’s true. At least, I despise him and his Kelso role from the TV sitcom That 70s Show. I’d also like to punch him out everytime I’ve had the misfortune of seeing Punk’d. But he was a surprise in this movie. The trailers make it look as if he’s kind of like Kelso, but he’s not. At least not through the film. In fact, I think he’s starting to mature as an actor. Once again, living in a small city means not getting to see limited-release films. I really wanted to see the horror thriller Frontieres, which just opened. David Mamet’s Redbelt, which opened May 2nd, is another limited release movie I wanted to see but couldn’t. The latter placed at #10 this weekend, taking in only $1.14M - a lot more than the $100K or so that it took in on its opening weekend. (Note that it earned more per theater, on average, in week 1.) So that shows you how bad a weekend it was for movies that weren’t either Iron Man, Speed Racer, or What Happens in Vegas. The top three movies took in the lion’s share of box office receipts. Heck, Iron Man alone took in almost as much as movies #2-10, collectively. So I pity the non-blockbusters that’ll be opening against Prince Caspian this weekend and Indiana Jones next weekend. (Fact: It doesn’t matter how crappy a movie is if you can use the trailers to lie and get people out on opening weekend. It’s not like movie theaters issue refunds if we hate the product.)
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  Speed Racer - Movie Review

  http://www.filmpundits.com/speed-racer-movie-review/
  4 days ago in Film Pundits - Movie news, reviews, commentary, and resources · No authority yet

  It’s utterly unbelievable that the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix) actually spent $160 Million on the biggest piece of crap released in movie theaters this year to date: Speed Racer. They certainly didn’t spend that money on the actors’ abilities to act, nor on a good script, and certainly not the epilepsy-inducing, gaudy, bright, horrible, confusing graphics. (I can’t think of enough adjectives.) I knew going in to the theater that Speed Racer wouldn’t have much of a plot. (One person likened it to being as seemingly appealing as the live-action Flintstones movie of a few years ago - which John Goodman was also in. Hint, hint?) But you’d think that the guys who made The Matrix - which had incredible CGI work - would have at least produced a crappy movie with great graphics. If there was any shred of good acting, it was from Matthew Fox as the mysterious Racer X character, a force for justice. But when you’re matched against wretched dialog and awful acting, it’s a dog’s breakfast covering any good bits. This is a terrible movie, with no redeeming qualities, and it makes me wonder exactly what they spent $160M on. I’d go back to the graphics company and demand a refund, boys. So save your money, maybe get your hands on the old anime TV series if you have some unexplained need to watch Speed Racer. Of course, if you have kids, it might be difficult to explain to them that you might vomit if you had to watch this piece of crap. Just get them the toys - the TV commercials are already appearing, and some fast food restaurant is bound to offer some soon as well. The Wachowski Brothers should be put into a corner of a room and made to write, “I will not make crappy remakes of mediocre TV shows again” - say about 1,000 times with a small piece of chalk.
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  SPEED RACER BOMBS AT THE BOXOFFICE CRASHES & BURNS ON OPENING WEEKEND

  http://binside.typepad.com/binside_tv/2008/05/speed-racer-bo...
  4 days ago in Binside TV · Authority: 118

  Speed Racer is the first major casuality of the summer boxoffice season. The $200 million dollar kiddie action movie opened on May 9th and suffered from lackluster movie reviews and horrible boxoffice. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a low overall rating of 35% and a review that said the movie was "overloaded with headache-inducing effects, without a coherent script." We guess that Warner Bros. easily lost $400+ million dollars after P&A (prints and ads) expenditures. Ouch! Watch the Spill movie review of Speed Racer below. We attended Speed Racer's red carpet premiere with the cast members Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. At the NY premiere we spoke to producer Joel Silver who expressed his excitement about working with the duo formerly known as the Wachowski brothers. Andy and Larry Wachowski directed the successful Matrix series. Cinematical reported that Larry Wachowski underwent a sex change operation and is now known as "Lana" Wachowski and was not going to speak to the press about his/her transformation until after the release of Speed Racer. On top of that, sources say that Andy Wachowski would do all the press for the film as well for fear that the whole sex change thing could potentially harm the family-friendly film. source Speed Racer producer Joel Silver told us that he was producing more movies for the Wachowski's to helm. We just wonder how these projects are going to pan out after Speed Racer was such a global boxoffice bomb. Andy and Larry Wachowski were plucked from obscurity by veteran film producer Joel Silver after their low budget independent film Bound. It seems that the main complaint everyone had with Speed Racer is that the movie skewed too young with it's PG rating. The movie also didn't have a plot and relied too heavily on green screen CGI special effects. Hopefully, the studios will realize that people are making a choice about what they should spend their money on for entertainment. Watch the 7 minute preview of Speed Racer below if you're brave. We've gotta warn you that the first 7 minutes include more than 2 flashbacks and really suck. SATURDAY NOON UPDATE: I'm just receiving reports that Speed Racer also isn't doing well overseas where it opened day and date Friday in 30+ territories. Says a marketing and distribution source for another studio: "It is a disaster in the worst way. It was No. 6 in the UK and No. 9 in Germany and the numbers are horrific. Only Latin America showed signs of life -- but it was barely a pulse." I haven't seen any official international figures from Warner Bros yet. But the film was supposed to do better overseas where anime is a bigger draw than in the U.S. Despite a wide release into 3,606 theaters, the anime actioner starring Emile Hirsh opened Friday with only $6.1 million (and some studios said it was merely $5.7M). Even if today's kiddie matinees generate some of the usual high-octane and the movie moves up a notch to second place, it still won't move Speed Racer out of the slow lane or approach Warner Bros' own expectations of a mid-$30s million debut (and that was down from a hoped-for $40 mil a few days before...). The alarming fact is this film will struggle to even make $20 million for the weekend. At an estimated cost of at least $140 million (some sources put the final budget as high as $185 million), this family fare is yet another case of a studio letting talent run amok: the Wachowski siblings delivered a long, loud, and lousy movie. (The Industry scuttlebutt is that Warner Bros Pictures Group prez Jeff Robinov, a one-time agent, gave way too much power to his former clients. Of course, the success of their Matrix franchise justified a certain degree of autonomy.) The film's biggest handicap is its 2 hour, 15 minute, running time, bucking the current trend of kid movies clocking in at a mercifully short 90 to 100 minutes. And then there are the bad reviews: only 27% positive among the cream of the crop of Rotten Tomatoes film critics. In addition, the pic should have been "aged up": it plays too young and limits its audience by appealing mostly to little boys. According to the "Parents and Kids" premium tracking, Speed Racer was first choice among parents and boys aged 7 through 11. Unfortunately, the Warner Bros film will get creamed by the competition from the Disney/Walden blockbuster Narnia 2 opening next weekend. source
• 

  SPEED RACER BOMBS AT THE BOXOFFICE CRASHES & BURNS ON OPENING WEEKEND

  http://rehab818.com/blog/2008/05/11/speed-racer-bombs-at-the...
  4 days ago in Rehab818 · Authority: 11

  Speed racer is the first major casuality of the summer boxoffice season. The $200 million dollar kiddie action movie opened on May 9th and suffered from lackluster movie reviews and horrible boxoffice. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a low overall rating of 35% and a review that said the movie was "overloaded with headache-inducing effects, without a coherent script." We guess that Warner Bros. easily lost $400+ million dollars after P&A (prints and ads) expenditures. Ouch! Watch the Spill movie review of Speed Racer below. We attended Speed Racer's red carpet premiere with the cast members Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. At the NY premiere we spoke to producer Joel Silver who expressed his excitement about working with the duo formerly known as the Wachowski brothers. Andy and Larry Wachowski directed the successful Matrix series. Cinematical reported that Larry Wachowski underwent a sex change operation and is now known as "Lana" Wachowski and was not going to speak to the press about his/her transformation until after the release of Speed Racer. On top of that, sources say that Andy Wachowski would do all the press for the film as well for fear that the whole sex change thing could potentially harm the family-friendly film. source Speed Racer producer Joel Silver told us that he was producing more movies for the Wachowski's to helm. We just wonder how these projects are going to pan out after Speed Racer was such a global boxoffice bomb. Andy and Larry Wachowski were plucked from obscurity by veteran film producer Joel Silver after their low budget independent film Bound. It seems that the main complaint everyone had with Speed Racer is that the movie skewed too young with it's PG rating. The movie also didn't have a plot and relied too heavily on green screen CGI special effects. Hopefully, the studios will realize that people are making a choice about what they should spend their money on for entertainment. Watch the 7 minute preview of Speed Racer below if you're brave. We've gotta warn you that the first 7 minutes include more than 2 flashbacks and really suck. SATURDAY NOON UPDATE: I'm just receiving reports that Speed Racer also isn't doing well overseas where it opened day and date Friday in 30+ territories. Says a marketing and distribution source for another studio: "It is a disaster in the worst way. It was No. 6 in the UK and No. 9 in Germany and the numbers are horrific. Only Latin America showed signs of life -- but it was barely a pulse." I haven't seen any official international figures from Warner Bros yet. But the film was supposed to do better overseas where anime is a bigger draw than in the U.S. Despite a wide release into 3,606 theaters, the anime actioner starring Emile Hirsh opened Friday with only $6.1 million (and some studios said it was merely $5.7M). Even if today's kiddie matinees generate some of the usual high-octane and the movie moves up a notch to second place, it still won't move Speed Racer out of the slow lane or approach Warner Bros' own expectations of a mid-$30s million debut (and that was down from a hoped-for $40 mil a few days before...). The alarming fact is this film will struggle to even make $20 million for the weekend. At an estimated cost of at least $140 million (some sources put the final budget as high as $185 million), this family fare is yet another case of a studio letting talent run amok: the Wachowski siblings delivered a long, loud, and lousy movie. (The Industry scuttlebutt is that Warner Bros Pictures Group prez Jeff Robinov, a one-time agent, gave way too much power to his former clients. Of course, the success of their Matrix franchise justified a certain degree of autonomy.) The film's biggest handicap is its 2 hour, 15 minute, running time, bucking the current trend of kid movies clocking in at a mercifully short 90 to 100 minutes. And then there are the bad reviews: only 27% positive among the cream of the crop of Rotten Tomatoes film critics. In addition, the pic should have been "aged up": it plays too young and limits its audience by appealing mostly to little boys. According to the "Parents and Kids" premium tracking, Speed Racer was first choice among parents and boys aged 7 through 11. Unfortunately, the Warner Bros film will get creamed by the competition from the Disney/Walden blockbuster Narnia 2 opening next weekend. source
• 

  SPEED RACER BOMBS AT THE BOXOFFICE CRASHES & BURNS ON OPENING WEEKEND

  http://rehab818.com/blog/2008/05/11/speed-racer-bombs-at-the...
  4 days ago in SUSPENDED · Authority: 21

  Speed racer is the first major casuality of the summer boxoffice season. The $200 million dollar kiddie action movie opened on May 9th and suffered from lackluster movie reviews and horrible boxoffice. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a low overall rating of 35% and a review that said the movie was "overloaded with headache-inducing effects, without a coherent script." We guess that Warner Bros. easily lost $400+ million dollars after P&A (prints and ads) expenditures. Ouch! Watch the Spill movie review of Speed Racer below. We attended Speed Racer's red carpet premiere with the cast members Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. At the NY premiere we spoke to producer Joel Silver who expressed his excitement about working with the duo formerly known as the Wachowski brothers. Andy and Larry Wachowski directed the successful Matrix series. Cinematical reported that Larry Wachowski underwent a sex change operation and is now known as "Lana" Wachowski and was not going to speak to the press about his/her transformation until after the release of Speed Racer. On top of that, sources say that Andy Wachowski would do all the press for the film as well for fear that the whole sex change thing could potentially harm the family-friendly film. source Speed Racer producer Joel Silver told us that he was producing more movies for the Wachowski's to helm. We just wonder how these projects are going to pan out after Speed Racer was such a global boxoffice bomb. Andy and Larry Wachowski were plucked from obscurity by veteran film producer Joel Silver after their low budget independent film Bound. It seems that the main complaint everyone had with Speed Racer is that the movie skewed too young with it's PG rating. The movie also didn't have a plot and relied too heavily on green screen CGI special effects. Hopefully, the studios will realize that people are making a choice about what they should spend their money on for entertainment. Watch the 7 minute preview of Speed Racer below if you're brave. We've gotta warn you that the first 7 minutes include more than 2 flashbacks and really suck. SATURDAY NOON UPDATE: I'm just receiving reports that Speed Racer also isn't doing well overseas where it opened day and date Friday in 30+ territories. Says a marketing and distribution source for another studio: "It is a disaster in the worst way. It was No. 6 in the UK and No. 9 in Germany and the numbers are horrific. Only Latin America showed signs of life -- but it was barely a pulse." I haven't seen any official international figures from Warner Bros yet. But the film was supposed to do better overseas where anime is a bigger draw than in the U.S. Despite a wide release into 3,606 theaters, the anime actioner starring Emile Hirsh opened Friday with only $6.1 million (and some studios said it was merely $5.7M). Even if today's kiddie matinees generate some of the usual high-octane and the movie moves up a notch to second place, it still won't move Speed Racer out of the slow lane or approach Warner Bros' own expectations of a mid-$30s million debut (and that was down from a hoped-for $40 mil a few days before...). The alarming fact is this film will struggle to even make $20 million for the weekend. At an estimated cost of at least $140 million (some sources put the final budget as high as $185 million), this family fare is yet another case of a studio letting talent run amok: the Wachowski siblings delivered a long, loud, and lousy movie. (The Industry scuttlebutt is that Warner Bros Pictures Group prez Jeff Robinov, a one-time agent, gave way too much power to his former clients. Of course, the success of their Matrix franchise justified a certain degree of autonomy.) The film's biggest handicap is its 2 hour, 15 minute, running time, bucking the current trend of kid movies clocking in at a mercifully short 90 to 100 minutes. And then there are the bad reviews: only 27% positive among the cream of the crop of Rotten Tomatoes film critics. In addition, the pic should have been "aged up": it plays too young and limits its audience by appealing mostly to little boys. According to the "Parents and Kids" premium tracking, Speed Racer was first choice among parents and boys aged 7 through 11. Unfortunately, the Warner Bros film will get creamed by the competition from the Disney/Walden blockbuster Narnia 2 opening next weekend. source
• 

  Speed Racer just not holding up ...

  http://antoinebandele.blogspot.com/2008/05/speed-racer-just-...
  4 days ago in Antoine's Junkpile · Authority: 11

  The much hyped "Speed Racer" movie is off to a very rough start at the box office this weekend. On Friday night, "Speed Racer" only pulled in $6.6 million which will likely only result in $25 million for the entire weekend. That's a very disappointing opening for a movie thas was expected to make at least $40M. "Iron Man" will likely hold on to the top spot at the box office pushing "Speed Racer" to at least second. Let's just hope they get a matinee boost from the kiddies on Saturday and Sunday. Most of the reviews that I have read says the movie creeps along at snail speed and seems to last forever. "Speed Racer" is supposed to be one of those flicks that doesn't require a major time investment. You should probably even be able to fall asleep and wake up feeling like you didn't miss anything. From what I hear, you just want to fall asleep during this movie and never wake up! Linkage IRON MAN was just too big and too entertaining of a movie to follow. Looks like it, Iron Man, will definitely be holding onto the top spot in the box office this weekend. But next week it should definitely be second with Prince Caspian AND Speed Racer on its case. My prediction? Honestly: 1. Prince Caspian 2. Iron Man 3. Speed Racer Or who knows, maybe Iron Man will drop to three and Speed Racer will stay at two. Only time will tell, only time. I still would like to see Speed Racer. Maybe next weekend. I'm not really looking forward to Prince Caspian. The first one was just okay to me, nothing special at all, this sequel looks even more mediocre. The next big thing, to me, this summer is Dark Knight. Can't wait for that :) Peace.

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