After a
good bit of time idling and doing practice laps, Speed Racer appears to be
picking up a decent bit of momentum as it prepares to head into a major box
office battle where it’ll take endless left turns with the likes of Iron
Man and the next Narnia flick during the May kickoff
of the 2008 summer movie season. And now Warner Bros. and the Wachowskis have
found the man to keep the Mach 5 driver seat nice and toasty during all of
this.
It’s Emile
Hirsch, who to my recollection has been pretty rock solid in stuff like Lords
of Dogtown and The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (I
meant to catch Alpha Dog, but when I realized it wasn’t actually a USA
Original movie and I’d have to leave my house and part with money, I had to say goodbye). He’s never done any
major franchise work before, but Warner Bros. is obviously hanging the picture
on whatever pull the Speed Racer brand name will have for
boomers and the direction of The Wachowskis. As far as the latter, I do wonder
if these gents are going to be able to visually pimp this movie out the way
some might be expecting. With production beginning this summer and the
9, 2008
release date carved in stone, that’s a lean timeline to finish a lot of
extensive effects shots in post-production. And with the spectre of the ultra
high bar for slow-motion car explosions and POV shots set by Renny Harlin’s Driven,
how in the world are The Wachowskis going to surpass that and wow us again?
We’ll see as production nears. Announcements on the rest of the cast should be arriving fast and furious in the coming weeks.