Speed Racer Caught Cheating in Weekend Race?

Oops. Looks like someone got caught fudging their math.

It is a long held tradition that the studios try to be as rigid as possible when reporting their weekend estimates. Despite how underhanded and dirty the business can be, more often than not the studios are pretty close. But not this weekend. After much name-calling and some accusations, it turns out Warner Brothers was a little off in its reporting. How off? About two million dollars. And while that might not seem like the biggest sin, let me ask you something.

What was the number one movie this weekend? If you're reading a site like ours, then you probably already know it's Iron Man. But what about the number two spot? Speed Racer? That's what's been reported all over the place. But that's not it. What Happens in Vegas is the weekend number two. How much did Speed lose by? Almost two million dollars. Wait ... why does that number sound so familiar? Fox, as it turns out, was more than honest, under-reporting their win by a hundred and seventy two thousand. But WB claimed that Speed came in at just over 20 mill, when it actually took in just over 18.

So why did they do it? PR advantage. You see, the industry has changed and (as many complain) the weekend gross report gets read like the weekend sports scores. And as much as it makes people feel like they're paying attention more to the game, it has caused a dramatic shift in how Hollywood and the press view the numbers. Once upon a time we all waited until Monday to cover it -- but when sites and studios began releasing weekend estimates, news organizations began running them in hopes of being the early edition. By Monday, weekend cumes are old hat. So ... what would happen if you fudged a little in a close race? Well, you could convince American readers that you won when you didn't. Because it doesn't really matter to readers how much you made -- just how well they think you did.

And sadly Speed bombed like Michael Richards at the Apollo. Critics savaged it, the kids spurned it to go see Iron Man again. As much as I'm not a big fan of looking at box office as sports scores, even I hate to see someone pull a stunt like this. WB is a good company. They're better than this. There is gonna be (and probably already is) a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking trying to explain why this film failed -- but really, when it all comes down to it, WB lost the PR war with this stunt alone. They've made Speed Racer into a joke. And it's a movie that deserves much better than that.

Anyone else bothered by the idea of a movie about fighting against big corporations that cheat and fix races being made by a big corporation that cheats and tries to fix the race? Yeah. Me too.

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