Warner Bros and the Wachowski Brothers may need to call for a tow truck. Speed Racer, the big budget adaptation of the popular late 60’s anime cartoon classic, remains in the “slow lane” according to the most recent industry tracking.
Studio sources are attempting to explain away the bad tracking by saying that family films never score particularly well in advance audience surveys, but there’s something fundamentally wrong in the numbers that have been described to me. Un-Aided Awareness, an excellent measure of buzz and anticipation, is stronger for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Disney) at 9% than it is for Speed Racer at 8%, and the Narnia sequel won’t hit theatres until May 16.
The bad news doesn’t stop there. Narnia out-tracks the Emile Hirsch-Christina Ricci racing flick in the Definite Interest column 44%-32% and in the all-important First Choice score 17%-4%. Yes, there are some kids unrepresented in the tracking, but this has all of the makings of a disastrous roll-over car wreck.
One exec from a competing studio told me that Warner Bros will be lucky to steer Speed Racer to $35M on opening weekend. On the flipside, the Narnia tracking suggests that it will have no problem opening above the 2005 original’s $65.5M the following Friday. Even if word-of-mouth for Speed Racer is positive, there likely won’t be time for it to get any traction with family audiences before being swamped by Prince Caspian. That means that the likely ceiling for the Wachowski brainchild is a disappointing $75M-$80M.
Read More at Fantasy Moguls.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:41 am
maybe it’s because of the computer-game-look of that movie?
will be able to watch it today, so i’ll see…
April 30th, 2008 at 8:09 am
No I think this estimation is absolute B.S. Remember what happened last year with Transformers. Everybody thought it would be a big disappointment. But It became second highest grossing film just behind POTC:AWE. My estimation for Speed Racer would be $60 million weekend with over $250 million dollors domestic run. Its an open challenge from me.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:18 am
nice use of puns and wordplays, mr mason
April 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
box office tracking is always hard to predict though. if i remember correctly, semi-pro was suppose to be in the 40-45 million range on opening weekend and we all know how big a bust that was. speed racer will probably not make its budget in the box office, but remember that there are not many family films out on the market right now and the kids will want to go see something.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Box Office doesn’t matter. The movie will be fun to watch. Simple.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I agree with Jezzus - box office shouldn’t matter to viewers. That’s for the suits to worry about.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
What a surprise!
/sarcasm..
April 30th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Yep..I agree that this junk is for Marketers. The sad truth is “most of the time” their predications are on the money.
I think the main reason that this film is tracking so poorly is because it looks like a huge pile of steaming garbage?
Im guessing under 40 mill for opening weekend..If that.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I’m surprised. A lot of people I know are stoked about this film, teenagers and adults alike. I’m interested now to see how well it’ll do.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I kinda’ hoped that it’ll be a big hit… I like the Wachowskys, and I always liked Speed Racer.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
This film is tracking poorly because it was a bad idea to begin with. I have a 10 year old and a 16 year old. The 10 year old thought Speed Racer looked stupid. The 16 year old agreed. They were excited to see Iron Man. I asked their friends and got the same reaction. This seems to me to be a case of people without kids or with nannies raising their kids, making multimillion dollar decisions about what their target audience will like. This film will be good for the pre-school set. It looks like Looney Tunes Back In Action. That was a real hit.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
coachdubya - The 10 year old thought Speed Racer looked stupid. The 16 year old agreed. They were excited to see Iron Man.
Hmm, sounds like a real dim set of bulbs you got there. Quite possibly your kids have ZERO imagination or originality, and supporting (Iron Man - now there’s a high-brow concept) an actor who nearly killed himself several times by over-dosing makes your parenting skills questionable at best.
And aligning yourself with the most profoundly ignorant President of all time says all we need to know about you, eh braintrust? Oh, and here’s an idea, start your own Market Research company, I’m sure you’ll make us all proud.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:57 am
I went to see this last night, at the midnight showing. Same thing last week w/Iron Man, which was sold out. 90% of the theater was empty last night for Speed Racer. I thought it was a fun film, great eye candy, but basically a kid’s movie or for the cartoon fans like myself.
I think this will do poorly at the box office, but gain momentum over time, especially after DVD release. It will NOT be a blockbuster, but may very well become a cult classic, just because of the inovative use of color and seamless melding of live action and sweeping CGI effects. Just like some other sci-fi visual pioneers which were considered box-office flops, Blade Runner ($6M opening, $33M total and The Fifth Element ($17M opening, $263M total), I think ‘Speed Racer’ will make its money back in the long run, not the short-term.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
thatsgonnaleaveamark:
LOL!! Only a self serving moronic jerk would call two kids names. Now that you’ve seen this crap, you’re saying it won’t be a blockbuster. My kids and their friends could have told you that idiot. You could have saved yourself some money. I know people who work for the company that didn’t want to see it and they had a chance to see it for free on Saturday. You know what they wanted to see genius….IRON MAN, just like the kids you ridiculed. Perhaps you read this headline, “SPEED RACER CRASHES & BURNS TO BECOME THE FIRST SUMMER BOMB: ‘IRON MAN’ STILL NO. 1.” You’re trying to save face because your precious anime tanked. LOL. Get a life dork. Get outta your momma’s basement and get a real job. Hey, maybe in marketing and research. You have a knack for that.