Speed Racer Gets Lapped by IronMan
Bring on all the racing puns and innuendos you can find. Speed Racer just didn’t have what it takes to beat IronMan to the finish line.
Yahoo Movies says:
“Speed Racer” was lapped in its opening weekend at the box office as “Iron Man” continued to fire its jets with $50.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.The anime-inspired race movie edged into the No. 2 spot with $20.2 million, slightly ahead of the 20th Century Fox comedy “What Happens in Vegas,” which debuted at $20 million.
Rarely do movies ever make more than they did on the first weekend in any other following weekend, so the studios are going to be hard pressed to come up with the $120million budget after this $50million opening weekend.
After they get the money from merchandising (my kids are crazy about the cars) and the dvd sales, they might recoup a lot of their costs, but I don’t imagine this will be enough to bring about a sequel.
Yahoo also points out that sites like this one were already bashing the film before it even came out. Oh the power of the intarweb!
Edit: It appears that some of the numbers were skewed to make the agony of defeat not so painful. But keep in mind Yahoo was reporting based on “projected numbers” for Sunday, so that wasn’t in stone. The Production budget may have been underestimated as well.
BoxOffice Mojo puts out final numbers.
Iron Man = $51,190,629
What Happens in Vegas = $20,172,474
Speed Racer = $18,561,337
Thanks for the tip MizH
12 Comments, Comment or Ping
Louis
That’s not the big story though - Speed Racer also got lapped by WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS but Warner Bros. was SO ashamed about it that they deliberately lied when presenting their estimates so they could appear as number 2 in the major media reports. Scandalous!!!
Link here: http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/toldja-speed-racer-finishes-distant-3rd/
May 12th, 2008
MizH
Completely unnaceptable and unprofessional in my opinion!
Box-office Mojo confirms it:
http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2008&wknd=19&p=.htm
May 12th, 2008
Randy032
This is a huge story in Hollywood right now… Emile Hirsch just fired UTA today as well. Actual costs for Speed Racer are exceeding 300 million dollars. Everyone’s talking about this numbers forgery!
May 12th, 2008
digital drew
Emile Hirsch is a great great actor, i didnt see speed not because of him, but because of the films style. The style looks like its really well done, but its just not for me.
May 12th, 2008
Kristina
This shit couldn’t even make $20 million? AAHAHAHAAAAA! Go Iron Man, GO!!!!!!
May 12th, 2008
Sir Jig-A-Lot
Damn. the Washowskis trumped by Ashton & Diaz. that’s funny.
i knew Iron Man wasnt drop down a spot at all. positive word-of-mouth has given this great film long legs.
May 12th, 2008
DarkKinger
Oh! OH! BBBBUUUUUUURRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Never underestimate a family film.” In this case, never OVERestimate a family film! Bend it over and kiss it goodbye, Iron Man just kicked this sucker HARD!
Allow me to sum it up like this; Ouch! ‘Nuff said!
May 12th, 2008
Jesse Rosenberg
for most wide release movies, they make about half less each weekend after opening, so iron man made 50 mil after a 100 mil
Harold and kumar 2 made 6 million last weekend and 3 million this weekend, So im guessing speed racer will make about 10 million or so this weekend. It is gunna be a big bust. Too much money was spent for that film especially in the blockbuster season where a big movie will come out every weekend
May 12th, 2008
tony
the guys just thought: the car-chasing scenes from matrix were so awesome, let’s cut all the crap about storyline and other unimportant stuff and let’s make a movie just about car-chasing. Well, that’s what you get. speed-racer.
I’m already looking forward for the sequel. Ironman is so much cooler than spiderman, which was highly overrated.
May 13th, 2008
Gutpunch
Well I said it many many moons ago that this film was going to be the biggest bomb this year. Looks like I was right.
Strangely enough I had a very vivid dream last night about The Incredible Hulk. In the dream it sucked any number of ass and it was one of those dreams that nothing goes right, no matter how you try and getting out of the theater was my goal.
Dream Hulk was horrible. Now to see if my dream comes true.
May 13th, 2008
HAZMAT
this isnt something to be happy about.
i was hoping for speedracer to be good i grew up on it, i would never say that its better then ironman- this only saddens me. what do people have against this film anyways? i feel bad about it sucking but i liked the show so theres no way i could be happy from this.
this movie did suck. but that only fucks up my day it doesnt cheer me up i was looking forward to this…
May 13th, 2008
Darren J Seeley
First of all:
“Yahoo also points out that sites like this one were already bashing the film before it even came out.”
Sites like TMB are small pebbles in the sand on a huge beach. “Meet The Spartans” made its blood money, didn’t it?
1) I think what people “had” against the film was…well, simply put, the CGI effects. In all the trailers, they looked off, like Speed Racer going down a track through The Schumacher 1997 B&R Gotham City.
2) While the age for ‘Iron Man’ is a serious PG-13, somehow I suspect Iron Man looks “cooler” than Speed Racer. The effects are better, acting’s better, story’s better. Everything is better. Better nostalgia too.
3) The kids want to save up allowance for this coming weekend’s Prince Caspian. There’s your “family film” Darkkinger.
4) From my understanding, the Diaz/Kutcher comedy is also doing better per screen average on fewer screens than SR. Either “Vegas” is that good, or “Racer” is that bad. Or both.* (note: this “could” also be thought of as a chick flick/date film- our g/f’s may not want to see SR, they saw Iron Man with us last week…)
5) SR should have come out a month ago. Sandwiched between Iron Man, Caspian and pretty much Indy, there had to be a sacrificial lamb among the lot.
And there you have it.
*because of the numbers, the “Vegas” film might pull in a few more numbers, simply because it does look good for that film
May 13th, 2008
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