Speed Racer: The First Flop of the Summer

Two weeks ago I wrote a post predicting which movies would flop this summer. Little did I know that the first big one was sitting right under my nose.

Speed Racer, the re-imagining of the old Saturday morning cartoon by The Matrix's Andy and Larry Wachowski, made an estimated $20.2 million, which, just to be clear, is unconditionally awful. Before the marketing had even started, Warner Bros. was dreaming up a $50 million plus opening – sure, it wouldn't match Iron Man, but there was no reason it couldn't hold its own, right?

As the release date grew closer, perilous signs appeared. Initial studio tracking – in-depth studies that survey how aware and how excited potential moviegoers are about the film – pegged it at a $40 million dollar weekend.  Which then turned to a mid-thirty million weekend, with some people whispering the number was actually somewhere in the high $20s. Apparently people just weren't nearly as interested in the film as Warner had hoped. Said Deadline Hollywood Daily on Thursday:

Warner Bros is figuratively on its knees praying for at least a mid-$30 million weekend opening for its kiddie anime Speed Racer -- already down from a hoped-for $40 million just a few days earlier. [...] As a Warner exec told me this afternoon, "I remain optimistic that families will go. I’m hoping we mirror something like Alvin and the Chipmunks. Industry projections based on tracking had it opening at $25M, but it opened to $44M."

Unfortunately, what they got was the opposite – whatever the tracking estimate really was, it had to have been higher than $20.2 million. According to IMDb, the budget for the film was $100 million, although some sources peg it at closer to $125. Add another $40 million (at least) in advertising, and you've got the studio on their hands and knees praying for the movie to do well in international territories.

In the days of yore, movies didn't live or die by their opening weekends. Advertising focused less on when films opened; they would wait patiently in theaters for word-of-mouth to kick in. That won't happen for Speed Racer – the reviews are mixed to bad, and the family audience (and most everyone else) will completely abandon it next weekend when The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian opens.

I really should've seen it coming: on the calendar, it was sandwiched between two surefire hits, Iron Man and Caspian. And it wasn't a sequel or a superhero movie or anything like that – just an adaptation of a TV show I honestly had no idea existed until I saw the Geico commercial spoof.

But the movie looked legitimately creative. The Wachowskis are brilliant visual directors, and their "live-action cartoon" style really seemed to work. The advertising made it look like a lot of fun – and when I went to see it, some talkiness aside, I honestly thought it was a lot of fun. And last year, another movie came out based on a Saturday morning cartoon I never watched that I didn't really understand the hype for: a little flick called Transformers. $300 million later, I saw few reasons Speed Racer couldn't also hit big.

One thing seems certain now: Sex and the City: The Movie will make more money...

Michael Dance
StrandedinManhattan.com

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