Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.
Faster!, the full-length feature movie about MotoGP racing, could be in American theaters by November, according to the film’s director.
“We don’t have any date definite yet,” Faster! director Mark Neale told Roadracingworld.com in a telephone interview. “We’re still talking to a lot of studios – Sony, Fox, HBO. We have several offers, but we want to make sure the offers are solid and right.”
Even if Hollywood’s major movie studios don’t show the interest in the film that he would like, Neale said he and Executive Producer Ian MacLean and Spark Productions will do a limited release of the film in at least six major U.S. cities in November followed by a DVD and video tape release of the film soon after. “I’m really impatient to get it out there,” said Neale.
Faster! has already met with a warm reception when viewed by MotoGP racers Valentino Rossi, John Hopkins, Garry McCoy, Olivier Jacque, Colin Edwards, Loris Capirossi and officials from MotoGP rights holder Dorna at the Cannes Film Festival in France during May.
“I think the film itself is great, I enjoyed it a lot,” Rossi told reporters at Cannes.
Faster! was shot on location at several Grands Prix from June 2001 to July 2002, and, thanks to the full cooperation of Dorna, Neale and his film crews had unprecedented access to the bikes, teams and riders–as well as to archival film footage.
“It’s an action documentary,” said Neale of his 100-minute product. “It’s a documentary that shouldn’t be any less exciting than an action movie, especially when considering you’re dealing with a sport as exciting as this.”
A motorcycle racing fan before he started Faster!, Neale said he hopes the film appeal to a wide audience and will be different things to different people. “Some people who are less into the sport will get more into the stories and hopefully open their eyes to the sport,” said Neale. “And it will take the enthusiast further into the sport than they’ve ever been.”
Some of the stories followed by Faster! include the heated rivalry between Rossi and Max Biaggi (with footage taken seconds after their famous physical altercation behind the podium at Catalunya). Interviews with former greats Kenny Leroy Roberts, the late Barry Sheene, Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz give first-person insight into racing rivalries.
The film also follows the story of young MotoGP star Hopkins and his meteoric rise to the highest level of motorcycle road racing, McCoy’s roller coaster ride from winning more GPs than Rossi or Biaggi in 2000 to spending a large portion of the next two seasons injured and watching from the paddock garage, and the transition of the World Championship from 500cc two-strokes to 990cc four-stroke racebikes. The stories are narrated by actor and motorcycle racing enthusiast Ewan McGregor.
“The director Mark Neale called me up and showed me the movie while I was working in the U.S., and I had never seen such a good motorcycling film,” McGregor told reporters in Cannes, France.
“It’s the definitive action movie about Grand Prix motorcycle racing,” said Neale.