The fact the highest-grossing video game adaptation in history didn’t even turn a single penny of profit in theaters tells you all you need to know about why the genre has become so stigmatized over the years, but Need for Speed proved to be one of the most profitable console-to-screen movies ever made, and yet still couldn’t get a sequel.
Quite remarkably given that it was widely panned by critics to the tune of a 22 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, the empty-headed action thriller recouped its budget three times over at the box office on its way to a $203 million tally, before shifting millions of copies on home video to continue plunging itself into the black.
Director Scott Waugh’s nonsensical chase flick was an especially massive hit in China, with the ticket sales in the country comfortably eclipsing the money it made back home, but there still wasn’t enough demand to will a second installment into existence, leaving Aaron Paul’s debut as an action hero floating ethereally through the pop culture consciousness forevermore.
That being said, a Reddit thread has at last showered the faintest of faint praise upon the breakneck slab of kinetic bravura, with the question being asked if Need for Speed is a good video game movie. The top-voted comment reads that it “wasn’t bad as far as video game movies go,” which encapsulates the feeling towards the entire operation in microcosm.
It’s not great, it’s not irredeemably awful, it’s just kind of… there, which is technically a fate better than being forgotten entirely.