“Speed Racer” doesn’t open until May 9, but the movie’s stars -– Emile Hirsch as Speed, Christina Ricci as Trixie and Matthew Fox as Racer X –- are on a premiere tour. Last Saturday, they were at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. On Tuesday, they were in London in the rain. This weekend, the movie will close out the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Emile Hirsch, as Speed Racer, driving the Mach 6, the successor to the Mach 5. (Warner Brothers Pictures)

The television show “Speed Racer” first aired in Japan in 1966 and appeared in the United States a year later. The show disappeared from television through most of the 1980s, as more sophisticated anime like “Star Blazers” and “Robotech” became popular. It wasn’t until the 1990s that “Speed Racer” reruns returned (on MTV of all places). It has since been rerun on various cable channels and used in commercials for Volkswagen and Geico.

The Wachowski brothers, the writer-director team behind the “Matrix” series, are responsible for translating “Speed Racer” to the big screen.

The Mach 5, Speed’s racecar, was shown in full-size 3-D form at the Detroit auto show earlier this year. (The car is also rendered in smaller form through marketing tie-ins with Hot Wheels, Lego, Jada Toys and McDonald’s.) While most car-themed movies use multiple copies of each car during filming (one for interior shots, one for chases, several for stunts), “Speed Racer” went minimalist. Continued

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