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News
UK Box Office Breakdown: Speed Racer Tanks
Wachowski bro's latest first casualty of the summer season.
by Orlando Parfitt | May 14, 2008
Discuss Article
Cripes! The bloodthirsty summer movie season has its first big-budget flop of the summer, and we're only two weeks in. The disappointment, no scrap that, disaster in question is the Wachowski brother latest effort http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/speed_racer/">Speed Racer, which had designs on taking http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/iron_man/">Iron Man's top spot, but instead, only came in a lowly fourth...

Getting piped to the post by Jon Favreau's comic adaptation, which has found a huge audience thanks to a combination of a charismatic, likeable leading man and a fizzy, funny tone, is not unexpected. But limping in behind the likes of http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/10008760-what_happens_in_vegas/">What Happens in Vegas... and http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/forgetting_sarah_marshall/">Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which has been on release for three weeks) represents a shocking return for the iconoclastic directorial siblings and uber-producer Joel Silver. In fact, the film made less than a £800per screen - pretty shocking compared to the £3500+ raked in by Iron Man.

So what went wrong? Well, the mixed reviews certainly didn't help; whilst many admired the delirious, barmy visual stylings of the film, many more were annoyed by the less-than-complex plot and characterisation and general cartoony tone (with some hacks obviously forgetting it was based on a Japanese anime and was made for kids...).

We think however it may have been Warner Brother's marketing strategy for the movie, with the studio targeting too broad a base and ultimately capturing no-ones imagination. Traditional fans of the Wachowski's previous effort The Matrix trilogy were almost certainly put off by the Speed Racers more childish moments (forum monkeys have been 'flaming' the film and giving it 'bad buzz' for months), while maybe not enough was done to woo the film's natural audience -- families with pre-teen kids. Indeed a summer or Easter holiday release would have perhaps been a better bet for the film's chances... too late now of course.

Elsewhere another similarly-hard-to-market film also made a disappointing run at the British public, with http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/1145736-neil_marshall/">Neil Marshall's http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/doomsday/">Doomsday also failing to garner much interest from Joe Public. The director of top horror flicks the Descent and Dog Soldiers was given more money for his latest effort, but many thought he wasted it on a collection of flashy set pieces with out much interlinking plot in between. This post-apocalyptic tale, which borrowed liberally from Mad Max, Escape from New York and many more, only made it to sixth place in the charts.

Related Items
Movie: Iron Man
What Happens in Vegas
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
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Celeb: Neil Marshall
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Comments (1-5 of 5 posts) | Reply
dethburger
dethburger writes:
on May 15 2008 08:15 AM

I really wanted to like Speed Racer, thats why I sat through the whole movie when I should have gotten a refund half-way through.

It's boring.


(Reply to this)
thereign
thereign writes:
on May 15 2008 09:48 AM

Maybe Speed Racer tanked because regardless of its target audience, it just flat-out SUCKED! Possibility, ever think of it? And what's with the out-of-date b.o. reference to the long-forgotten Doomsday?

"Hacks"? "Forum Monkeys"? Maybe you liked SR, but those of us with a slightly more discerning nature chose not to after viewing it. Talk about insulting your target audience, here! Way to go, Parfitt!


(Reply to this)
CoUcH ToMaToE DoUgIe
CoUcH ToMaToE DoUgIe writes:
on May 16 2008 03:55 PM

Good call, Orlando Parfitt- its people like The Reign who went

into the theater thirsting to hate it so once they found out it was as good

as Iron Man, they deemed it horrible. It was a good movie but definitely

their were too many people who never gave it a chance. Definitely going to

be an forgotten gem in the next coming years....

Orlando Parfitt, just writing to sat thank you, for standing up for this

unfairly abused film.


(Reply to this)
Lighthope
Lighthope writes:
on May 18 2008 03:10 PM

This article tries to go out of its way to find a reason why this movie tanked other than the fact that it simply is a bad movie.

So much lustre has been put on it because it was made by the Wachowski brothers of The Matrix trilogy. Yet people forget than only the first Matrix was good and the other two (also made by the Wachowski brothers) were considered horrible. So why is anyone surprised that something else they made is also horrible? A quick glance at their filmography doesn't exactly inspire confidence that they have a "magic touch".

Lighthope

Pearls of Wisdom - "Pretty women make us buy beer; ugly women make us DRINK beer!" - Al Bundy: Married...with Children

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(Reply to this)
KidGold17
KidGold17 writes:
on May 30 2008 04:57 PM

I loved the Matrix trilogy. ALL of them. I loved V and SR. I guess the Wachowskis just have my number.

(Reply to this)
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