Here are some crazy, but cool, Speed Racer photos. USA Today got the exclusive first look at the Wachowskis return to the big screen. The movie, based on the popular, and in my opinion, a bit trippy, cartoon, is a big budget adaptation, which opens next May 2008. And the movie looks to be equally trippy!

The Wachowskis have said they wanted to do a “kids” movie, so the film will likely be rated G, but maybe PG. The film stars Emile Hirsch as Speed, Matthew Fox (from Lost) as Racer X and Christina Ricci as Trixie.

The movie was shot entirely green screen, with some real props, like the Mach 5. See more photos after the jump! Yes, the kid and chimp are in it, too, and everything looks quite authentic, which is bizarre!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Learn more about Screen Rant or if you want more frequent updates follow us on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

I’m back from being out of town last week. Although I managed to post up a couple of reviews, a lot of news didn’t get covered. Here’s a summary of last week’s highlights:

- Ben Cross (Chariots of Fire) will play Sarek, Spock’s father, in the new and currently in production Star Trek movie. (StarTrek.com) Hey! They added another old guy to the cast!

- David Twohy, director of both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick apparently wants Vin Diesel back to play Riddick again. (ComingSoon.net) I thought the first one was pretty dumb the first time I saw it, but upon repeated viewings it grew on me. I also thought that Chronicles was cool in a “guilty pleasure” sort of way.

There’s a new list out (don’t we all just love lists?) of the 20 most anticipated movies coming out in the next 12 months.

Movietickets.com polled 2,000 active moviegoers to determine what movies they were most looking forward to. What’s an “active moviegoer” you ask? It’s someone who’s seen a lot of movies this summer. Over 50% of those polled have seen at least six films this summer, with almost 20% having seen 11 or more! So I would imagine that means that many of those polled were teenagers or in their early 20’s.

Before I get to the big list, here’s the breakdown by gender:

Top Five Films Guys Are Looking Forward To:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. The Dark Knight
3. Iron Man
4. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
5. American Gangster

Top Five Films The Ladies Are Looking Forward To:

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
2. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
3. The Dark Knight
4. American Gangster
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Come on girls, aren’t you interested in Iron Man, a suave playboy/James Bond-type that wears armor and flies?

Is the pendulum finally swinging the other way? For the longest time action movies pushed the PG-13 envelope, doing razor thin trims until they just barely escaped the R-rating and slid in to theaters as PG-13 for those lucrative teen and preteen dollars.

Now I hear from /Film that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has gotten a PG rating! I did not expect that at all… I had assumed it was a given that it would get a PG-13. Very surprising as far as I’m concerned.

Man, I realize it’s difficult to come up with things to say on the spot in an interview, but sometimes celebs really crack me up. There’s a video out of a press conference covering the upcoming movie Speed Racer… there’s the unveiling of the Mach 5 car plus a panel discussion with the stars of the film.

When Ricci’s turn to talk comes up she starts out great, but then…

The Screen Rant Empire continues to expand with yet another exciting podcast!

This week’s action-packed podcast includes news about The Dark Knight and IMAX, Eli (Hostel I & II) Roth’s more sensitive and artistic side, what you may NOT know about the Mach 5 from the upcoming Speed Racer movie, Iron Man related coolness, why movie trilogies are not always trilogies and how that relates to their failure or success.

Also, news on the unveiling of the ultimate Iron Man website for fans.

powered by ODEO

In a bit of Speed Racer news, USA Today unveiled an official image of the Mach 5 race car that will be used in the upcoming Wachowski brothers-helmed film. I thought it would be fun to compare the movie version (top image) with the version that’s been around since 1999 as a real-world, driveable car.

Emile Hirsch (pictured at left) is in final negotiations for the role of Speed Racer in the upcoming film to be produced by the Wachowski brothers. I’m not familiar with Hirsch and although that’s where the news is centered in regards to the project, I’m more curious about what a Wachowksi-helmed Speed Racer movie will be like.

They co-wrote V for Vendetta and the last thing they directed was the Matrix trilogy. Although different, these shared a dark tone that I don’t think will lend itself to Speed Racer. Of course they can always go in a completely different direction from the original animated series, but then what would be the point of calling it Speed Racer?