Driven (2001 film)

Stallone became interested in the world of racing while making Judge Dredd in Europe, and decided to make a film with that backdrop.[4] He had originally intended to make a film based on Formula One, attending the 1997 Italian Grand Prix[5] and stating his goal in a press conference. However, the plan was subsequently dropped.

Stallone said he wrote about 25 drafts.

And of those, about 20 were about this one man's journey, myself, through this film, and all his trials and tribulations. He'd fallen from a great height career-wise. He was a drunkard with all these problems and accidents because he and his wife Cathy, who's played by Gina Gershon, had this very tumultuous relationship. (Laughs) I'm giving you a little biographical hint here. And he just started to come apart. So he was brought back as kind of like how people should never be. It's like taking kids who are truants and then taking them to prison to see where they'll end up and scaring them straight. So I was brought back to basically prove to young Jimmy Bly how he should never be, as a bad example. And then the more we worked on it, it became the dark side, a little seedy, and I didn't know where the upside of it was ever going to be. So we began to reduce his role and make it more of an ensemble, so he's just there as a guy who did his job, wasn't very spectacular, would race like hell, sometimes he'd win, sometimes lose, but he had a certain work ethic code, that old school that could be applied to Jimmy. So that all made it more ensemble, and then in the editing we reduced it even more. I originally had a relationship going with the reporter. But that began to de-emphasise the other people, so we put that on the back burner... So we did shoot it but it we said, "Nah, it's not really flying."[6]

Stallone said the film was autobiographical in a lot of ways.

Racing's very much like the world of acting. You have your front runners and you have guys that are there for the long race, and you have other guys that block for other people, that are called supporting and character actors. It's all the same kind of situation. And you realize that you can't always be No. 1. You just can't be the guy in front all the time. So what you can do is lend support to, and help and nourish and encourage someone else. So it's like your experiences live on in someone else. If you can find some young actor and you can say, 'Listen, don't do this and don't do that and avoid this and that,' and share your experiences, and he does succeed, you can say, 'You know what, I kind of contributed to that.' As an actor did you have to learn you can't always be No.1 the hard way? (Laughs) Unfortuantely [sic] I did[6]

Stallone says it took four years to get the finance to make the film.

Stallone and Harlin had previously worked together on Cliffhanger. Harlin had been trying to develop a film on the life of Ayrton Senna and when that fell through signed on the make Driven.[7][8]

The film was shot primarily in Toronto, Canada, from 6 July 2000 until 12 October 2000, as well as at a variety of worldwide races which were sanctioned by CART.[9] The German race was filmed at the Continental test track in Hanover rather than the Lausitzring oval.

When Sylvester Stallone's character arrives at a race early in the film, there's a long shot of him walking in, saying hello to various people. One very brief uncredited cameo contains Dustin Hoffman, in racing gear, perhaps as part of a participating racing team's sponsorship. It looks like a chance meeting. Blink and you'll miss it.

Matt Hullum of Rooster Teeth Productions fame was the visual effects producer.[10]

The film premiere took place at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, with several CART competitors driving and demonstrating pit stops in modified Champ Cars down Hollywood Blvd.

According to director Harlin's commentary, his first cut was four hours long. Only 51 minutes of deleted footage was included as special feature on DVD.

Driven was a commercial failure, and grossed only $32 million against a $72 million budget.[11] This poor performance ended a modestly successful recovery (with 1999 film Deep Blue Sea and 1996 film The Long Kiss Goodnight) from director Harlin's critical and financial failure Cutthroat Island. However, it was Stallone's first #1 opening film since Cop Land.[12]

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[13]

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 14% score based on 110 reviews, with an average rating of 3.6/10. The site's consensus states: "Underdeveloped characters, silly plot dynamics, and obvious CG effects."[14] Metacritic reports a 29 out of 100 rating based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[15]

When Jay Leno appeared as a guest critic on the television show Ebert & Roeper, both Leno and Richard Roeper described Driven as the worst car film ever made, and a terrible depiction of auto racing. Stallone has said he regrets making the film.[16]

The film earned seven nominations at the 22nd Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Screen Couple (Reynolds and Stallone) and twice for Worst Supporting Actor (Reynolds and Stallone), with Estella Warren winning Worst Supporting Actress (also for Planet of the Apes).

A video game based on the film was released in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, and PlayStation 2.[17]