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14 Jul 2000, 12:32 (Ref:23177) | #1 | ||
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Toronto, Canada, July 13 — The much-ballyhooed movie Driven, which is centered around the CART FedEx Championship Series, begins filming in earnest this weekend and the entire cast of the feature film was revealed in a press conference Thursday in Toronto.
The film, written, produced and starred in by Sylvester Stallone, will also highlight many current CART drivers in cameo roles. Michael Andretti, Juan Montoya and Dario Franchitti are among the drivers scheduled to appear in the film, which is tentatively set for a 2001 summer release. "I think this is a great opportunity for our series to reach an audience that may not yet have been exposed to Champ Car racing," said Andretti, CART’s career victory leader. "I really believe this can be a stepping stone in creating new fans for our worldwide series. Once they see our level of competition, I think they will be hooked." The film will star Stallone as an aging racer who is brought back to tutor a young lion much in the way the film star did in Rocky V when he played opposite real-life fighter Tommy Morrison. The Rocky film saga parallels Driven in many ways according to the film’s director Renny Harlin. "Rocky wasn’t a movie just about boxing and this won’t be a movie about cars going around a track," Harlin said. "It won’t be a documentary, but since we have followed racing all our lives, we don’t want to take liberties with things that would never happen." Kip Pardue will play the young hotshoe that falls under the tutelage of Stallone, driving for a team that is owned by a character played by Burt Reynolds. When asked how he got involved with the film, Reynolds may have come up with the line of the week. "Burgess Meredith is dead," said Reynolds, talking about the actor who played Stallone’s crusty trainer/manager in the first three Rocky films. "Really, I always wanted to work with Sly and I’m thrilled to be on the screen with him." Gina Gershon, Robert Sean Leonard, Stacy Edwards, Estella Warren, Til Schweiger, Cristian de la Fuente and Brent Briscoe comprise the rest of the cast of a film that will use Champ Car racing to expose the frailty of the human condition. "Man has been racing since time immemorial and I think that these are very special people that do this," Stallone said. "These people face life-and-death situations on the track but when they take off the uniforms they are regular people with the same problems, worries and hang-ups that everyone has." This taken from RACER magazine. |
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16 Jul 2000, 00:14 (Ref:23413) | #2 | ||
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I advise you and Racer Magazine to read what Craig has posted on this subject - it seems that far from making racing enthusiasts out of non-fans, it is going to hugely embarrass open wheel fans and make people wonder why turbo engined "Indy Cars" sound like NASCARs and slide all over the track like ice racers. Montoya and Franchitti are not in this movie - just people dressed up like them - although I daresay Mikey will play himself and get star billing.
This is not going to be a good movie and will do nothing for Champ Cars or their pilots but make them a laughingstock among real racing people and bore the daylights out of the rest. |
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16 Jul 2000, 00:36 (Ref:23421) | #3 | ||
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"-although I daresay Mikey will play himself and get star billing."
-Grrr...if you think so. What did ou think of Days of Thunder? Much the same deal, but from what i gather it was very good for Nascar... |
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16 Jul 2000, 01:12 (Ref:23430) | #4 | ||
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People who didn't know anything about NASCAR and loved Tom Cruise, liked Days of Thunder. Also many fifteen year old boys who enjoyed the sex jokes.
It's all in what you like, I guess. |
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16 Jul 2000, 03:06 (Ref:23451) | #5 | ||
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Liz, you mean like Tom Cruise explaining the draft using two packets of Sweet and Low, Nicole Kidman's leg, and "victory lane."
What the films directors et all are actually saying and what they are actually doing seem to be two directly opposite things. "We'll feature real drivers and have been filming at actual races," said Stallone. "This will be very authentic--an interactive experience for the millions who love racing." http://competitionpress.com/motorspo...nb45119nc52823 From what Liz is saying, it's anything but that. A shame. I still have hope though. |
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17 Jul 2000, 22:46 (Ref:23769) | #6 | ||
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Ask Craig Manning too. Kenny Wilden (former Indy Lights pilote) is playing Mikey, incidentally. Ferrari bloke sitting behind me at the race had a close look at the cars and they are "racing school" steel tub cars with Ford V8 engines (I think that's what he said) tarted up with paste-ons to look like Champ Cars. The colour schemes vary from something that looks remarkably like its Big Brother, to paint jobs that must have been copied from old World War I biplanes.
Days of Thunder jokes: the crude scene in the hospital in which Tom Cruise is positively filthy to a woman doctor; and the rape jokes when they are stopped by "cops" that are really strippers (yep, rape is real funny, boys) are the ones I remember. I turned the movie off in disgust at that point. |
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18 Jul 2000, 01:09 (Ref:23792) | #7 | ||
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Whatever those cars were they did not sound nearly as nice as the actual Champ cars.
Liz(and anyone else at last weekends race), At the end of the race they had a camera car tow around what I think was supposed to be Stallone's Champ car around the track with the driver pumping his fists into the air like he had won the race. It was good for a laugh. I guess we know what will happen at the Toronto race then. |
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18 Jul 2000, 01:10 (Ref:23793) | #8 | ||
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Whatever those cars were they did not sound nearly as nice as the actual Champ cars.
Liz(and anyone else at last weekends race), At the end of the race they had a camera car tow around what I think was supposed to be Stallone's Champ car around the track with the driver pumping his fists into the air like he had won the race. It was good for a laugh. I guess we know what will happen at the Toronto race then. Although if I was watching the movie I would wonder why everybody was leaving the grandstands before the race was over. |
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18 Jul 2000, 01:30 (Ref:23796) | #9 | ||
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Elie Samah, whose last mega hit "Battlefield Earth" is exec prod on this film.
It's really too bad Bernie wouldn't let em use F1 to dump their garbage on. Just think of the final scene as stallone runs to the top of the ims after punting some evil german guy off the track. |
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18 Jul 2000, 06:52 (Ref:23828) | #10 | ||
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Join Date: Jan 2000
Posts: 371
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From a racing standpoint, Days of Thunder was a joke.
I expect the same from this flick. People who don't know a front wing from a pop-off valve may thing it's cool and check out the real thing, but for those of us who know the score, you can bet it will be a sorry spectacle. |
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