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Was The Race(r) Fixed?
13 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Warner Bros. on Monday was being accused of cooking the books Monday after it turned out that their box-office estimate for the opening weekend of Speed Racer was way off the mark. The studio had predicted that the film would wind up with $20.2 million in ticket sales, putting it in second place. "It's far from the first time a studio with an underperforming pic has overestimated its Sunday gross and avoided an embarrassing third-place finish in Monday morning box office stories," Daily Variety commented today (Tuesday). The estimated figure, not the final one, is the one that receives the most play in the press -- if for no other reason than that Sunday is ordinarily a light news day. Few analysts had believed the studio's estimate, given the movie's weak showing on Friday and Saturday. (Weekend estimates include actual figures for Friday and Saturday and estimated sales for Sunday.) As things turned out, the movie debuted with just $18.6 million -- a figure that will no doubt cause heads eventually to fall at the studio, which reportedly spent $250-300 million to produce and market it. Taking over second place was the debuting romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas from 20th Century Fox, which wound up with $20.2 million, the same amount that had been forecast for Speed Racer. Meanwhile, the second weekend of Iron Man earned $51.2 million, more than the debuts of Vegas and Racer put together, keeping it in first place.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Media by Numbers (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. Iron Man, Paramount, $51,190,629, 2 Wks. ($177,825,024); 2. What Happens in Vegas, Fox, $20,172,474, (New); 3. Speed Racer, Warner Bros., $18,561,337, (New); 4. Made of Honor, Sony, $8,116,323, 2 Wks. ($26,791,494); 5. Baby Mama, Universal, $6,225,790, 3 Wks. ($40,836,370); 6. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Universal, $3,837,240, 4 Wks. ($50,781,745); 7. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantánamo Bay, Warner Bros., $3,106,424, 3 Wks. ($30,667,308); 8 . The Forbidden Kingdom, Lionsgate, $2,169,323, 4 Wks. ($48,530,104); 9. Nim's Island, Fox, $1,463,622, 6 Wks. ($44,395,857); 10. Prom Night, Sony, $1,012,986, 5 Wks. ($42,785,107).

'Speed Racer' A Wreck On First Lap
12 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Warner Bros.' Speed Racer was barely able to go from zero to 20 -- $20 million, that is -- and could turn out to become one of the biggest box-office wrecks in history. Most analysts low-balled their predictions at around $30-40 million, a conservative figure in itself given industry estimates that it cost as much as $300 million to produce and market. Warner Bros. estimated that it would actually end up with $20.2 million, putting it in second place behind Paramount/Marvel Studio's Iron Man, which grossed $50.5 million in its second week.That extra $200, 000 may have been tacked on in a face-saving effort to put it ahead of What Happens in Vegas, which opened with an estimated $20 million to place third. Some box office trackers forecast that Speed Racer might well trade places with Vegas when final figures are released later today (Monday).

The top ten films for the weekend, according to studio estimates compiled by Media by Numbers: 1. Iron Man, $50.5 million; 2. Speed Racer, $20.2 million; 3. What Happens in Vegas, $20 million; 4. Made of Honor, $7.6 million; 5. Baby Mama, $5.8 million; 6. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, $3.8 million; 7. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay, $3.2 million; 8. The Forbidden Kingdom, $1.9 million; 9. Nim's Island, $1.3 million; 10. Redbelt, $1.14 million.

'Speed Racer' A Slow Starter Overseas, Too
12 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Speed Racer hit the overseas market with all gaskets blowing. It earned just $12.8 million in 30 countries, to place third at the international box office, behind Iron Man, which remained the top film with a gross of $39 million in its second week. (It has now grossed $165 million overseas. With its domestic gross, its worldwide total has reached $342.1 million after two weekends.) Twentieth Century Fox's What Happens in Vegas actually earned more overseas than it did in the U.S., drawing an estimated $23 million in 36 countries.

Movie Reviews: 'Speed Racer'
9 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Reviews of Speed Racer are likely to compound the nervousness of Warner Bros. execs over the Wachowski Brothers' expensive animated/live-action movie. Cheap horror films are often treated with greater critical kindness. Consider Joe Morgenstern's critique in the Wall Street Journal: "This toxic admixture of computer-generated frenzy and live-action torpor succeeds in being, almost simultaneously, genuinely painful -- the esthetic equivalent of needles in eyeballs -- and weirdly benumbing, like eye candy laced with lidocaine." A.O. Scott has a less corrosive review, but it's nearly as damning: "The childhood experience the Wachowskis evoke is not the easy delight of lolling in the den watching one cartoon after another, but rather the squirming tedium of sitting in the back seat on an endless family car trip, your cheek taking on the texture of the vinyl seat as some grown-up lectures you on the beauty of the passing scenery," he says. Or take Kyle Smith's comparison in the New York Post: "This adventurously awful film is awful in many ways at once," Smith observes. "It is, like a Ferraro poking across East 42nd Street at rush hour, fast yet slow. It is futuristic ally retry. Its attention span is measurable in microseconds, yet it runs more than two hours. And it spent a trillion dollars imitating the look of a 10-cent cartoon from the primitive '60s -- artistically, the Cro-Magnon era. I was initially awed by its splendors. But when I'd had my fill, there was still an hour-45 left." Nevertheless, a few critics are impressed with the artistic achievement of the animators. "On the levels of technical craftsmanship and pure eye-candy, Speed Racer is some kind of triumph of the will," Try Burr comments in the Boston Globe. And Refer Guzmán in Newsday calls it "one of the most visually audacious films to come along in years."

Racing For Second
9 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Few analysts expect Warner Bros.' Speed Racer to win the box-office race this weekend. The film -- likely to attract mostly families with small kids -- is expected to gross around $30-35 million. That's about a third of what Iron Man earned a week ago, so if that film drops even 60 percent, it would remain at the top. Analysts suggest that such a plunge is unlikely, especially given last week's exit polls indicating that it may even do considerable repeat business. Today's (Friday) Los Angeles Times indicated that Warner's top execs are concerned that Speed Racer has been tracking so poorly that only "a narrow sliver of boys 7 to 11 years old" seem eager to see it. Warner's marketing chief Sue Kroll told the Times that she was "bewildered" about the tracking surveys, noting that preview audiences have responded favorably to the film. "There is a disconnect between how people react to the film and what the tracking is indicating," she said. The studio's concern is no doubt amplified by the fact that the movie may have cost some $250-300 million to produce and market. Analysts are also not betting that What Happens in Vegas will hit the jackpot. The 20th Century Fox film, the only other major movie to open wide this weekend, is expected to earn around $15 million, perhaps less.

Movie Reviews: 'What Happens In Vegas'
9 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
What Happens in Vegas, starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz, shoots snake-eyes with critics. Some of their reactions: Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail: "What Happens in Vegas should damn well have stayed in Vegas." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal: "What Happens in Vegas should have stayed in development -- forever." Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: "One of those junky time-wasters that routinely pop up in movie theaters." Claudia Puig in USA Today: "A mediocre movie that takes no chances." Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun: "A screwed-up screwball farce." And while Speed Racer at least got props from a few critics for artistic merit, Michael Phillips concludes tersely about Vegas in the Chicago Tribune: "The movie looks like crud."

IMAX Building Boom Will See Digital Switch
6 May 2008 (StudioBriefing)
IMAX is engaged in a "construction boom" that will see the number of IMAX theaters in North America increase by nearly 80 percent by the end of next year, USA Today reported today. Many of the new venues, it indicated, will deploy digital projectors instead of the enormous machines that have been required in the past to project images from gigantic reels of 70mm film stock onto the oversized screen. Some of the movies that will be converted into the IMAX format this year include Speed Racer, Kung Fu Panda, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the animated Monsters vs. Aliens. IMAX officials said they were also talking to sports teams about using the new digital projection systems for theatrical presentations of live sports events. Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Eric Wold told the newspaper, "The new [IMAX] theater pace will be huge over the next two years. And I predict them turning profitable in the fourth quarter and staying profitable ever after."

Tribeca Film Festival Opens
23 April 2008 (StudioBriefing)
Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival is due to kick off in New York tonight (Wednesday) with the screening of the comedy Baby Mama starring former Saturday Night Live players Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The film concerns a single woman who hires a surrogate mother to give birth to her baby. While mostly small, independent, films are screened at the festival -- some 120 of them are scheduled, many of them shot in New York -- it will also feature the world premiere of the Wachowski brothers' big budget Speed Racer on May 3, the festival's closing night and a week before the film's domestic opening.

PETA Concerns Over Chimp Attack on Movie Set
4 July 2007 (WENN)
Animal rights campaigners are furious at reports a chimpanzee was beaten on the set of the new Speed Racer movie. The chimp was allegedly attacked after it bit an actor on the set of Speed Racer, which stars Christina Ricci and Emile Hirsch. And animal rights group People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are taking the claims seriously - officials have fired off a letter to film producer Joel Silver begging him not to use live animals in his movies. The letter, obtained by WENN, reads, "We are in receipt of information that may upset you. We've received several troubling complaints from people who have been on the Speed Racer set and report that the main chimpanzee 'actor' has been beaten and has bitten one of the human actors." But a movie spokesperson believes PETA bosses may have reacted too hastily, confirming a young actor was bitten, but strongly denying reports the chimpanzee was beaten, insisting, "Our company does not tolerate the mistreatment of animals... and there has been no animal abuse on the set of Speed Racer. An American Humane Association safety representative has been on set at all times when animals have been present." But PETA isn't satisfied, adding in a second letter, also obtained by WENN, "No humane representative is closely monitoring those animals while off-set or during pre-production training - the very places where abuse is most likely to occur - so we regret to say that the assurances you offer are meaningless."