Something else to consider regarding Drive is that Nicolas Winding Refn, a Danish director far from LA/NYC and the Flyover States, had a lot of influence over the rewrites once he came onto the project. In terms of style, Drive felt like his previous films. I think critics like Drive so much because when the film does switch genres it does so with such gusto, whereas that very thing might not fly with wider audiences.

Drive is a director’s/art house fan’s dream, visual expression and subtle declarations of meaning. For example, the scene in the elevator after Gosling literally smashes the dude’s face into slime. I understood the no dialogue but long stare Gosling gives to the women he covets as he lets the doors close, thus displaying how his world of violence and death is something he must live alone. But the casual moviegoer will be just as you describe Scott saying “WTF” Dolphin Tale, as you stated, is very clean and easy to understand, which is NOT a bad thing. Often times film fanatics will trash a film for its simplistic nature but there is a place for this type of filmmaking. Films geared toward children/families can not be bombarded with metaphoric jargon and visuals. I wouldn’t feel too bad for Drive that much Scott, after the Oscar nominations are announced there will be enough congratulations to go around. I wouldn’t be shocked if it gets a best director, adapted screenplay and musical score nod.

I love Drive. And I'm not surprised if it doesn't take off as much as it could in the box office. The artistry and gruesome violence will probably leave most viewers uneasy, especially Notebook fans that just came for Gosling. Many famous foreign films dabble more in the artsy, raw, and gory types of films. Chan Wook Park is a great example, amazing stories, edgy themes, but so beautifully made. They will never be for everyone, but it's almost more special because of it.

I thought Refn captured L.A. in a distinctive way and riffing off your point, it makes me think that foreign directors can interpret America differently than American directors. For example on a bigger canvas, what Australian Peter Weir did with Witness I thought really captured the spirit of the contrast between urban and Amish communities. It will be really interesting to see what Refn does in the future. Per IMDBpro, he has two movies in post (Black's Game, Pusher), another in pre-pro (Only God Forgives), and four in development including the remake of Logan's Run.

I don't know if it's as much a matter of being inside the 101-110-10-405 bubble as the film enthusiast's bubble, the subset of the population that reads blogs like this one. I've seen the film twice in the greater LA area, and while I didn't see anybody walk out, at least a few people were thrown by or audibly displeased with the film. The other thing is that I can see being pissed if you saw the movie just based on the poster, but the widely-circulating trailer really lays out the change-up from romantic drama to violent crime thriller pretty clearly, so I'm surprised people were caught off guard by that.

I saw Goodfellas in London. At least five couples walked out in the 1st 5 mins.

Faster only did $23M, and it had the benefit of a bona fide lead actor, a great supporting cast, and a major studio behind it. Don't want to compare the two movies, but they are tonally and superficially similar. It might just be as simple as this kind of movie being unfriendly to a general audience. imho, Drive might be the sign that part of the movie business is reverting back to the 70's, where auteur driven, lower risk $5->$20 million movies that target a niche start becoming more widespread.

I wonder if most in the bubble didn't think that Drive would do about the business that it did - regardless of how much they liked it. Personally I liked (not loved) it, but I was a little shocked at the violence as well (i'm in seattle, for what it's worth). It was me and an old black dude - that's it - in one of the small screens they stash way in the back...and he was like "oh, shit" after the elevator scene. And I echoed it. Regardless, I think it did what it set out to do...will be profitable, pushing the careers forward of the principles. Re: Dolphin's Tale - a little fuzzy on why you were comparing the two. Straight forward family movie - I didn't see it, but sounds like it hit all the right beats - and it was fairly low budget, wide audience, perfect studio fare. Maybe it over-performed some but did it really do that much more business than expected??

I loved loved loved Drive, but I had no illusions that it was going to open like a mainstream action flick. It's easy to see why some people on Twitter might have thought it was going to open huge if they saw it in LA, though. I saw it in the dome in the Arclight on opening night with a sold-out crowd and it was one of the best in-theater experiences of my life. The crowd was absolutely glued to every little movement of that movie, and it got a standing ovation when it was over. Not a single walkout that I saw, either. That's LA and that's at the Arclight, though--that's not the same reception it got in Georgia. And yeah, I saw the people in Twitter clamoring about it not making more than it did, but it would worry me if a lot of those people were industry types... I think it's almost a miracle that Drive did as well as it did! If you think about it, it's really a European arthouse crime thriller drama 80s neo-noir version of a Western. We do not live in a world where that movie can open to 30 million dollars. As nice as that world might be. So I think it's fantastic that it opened as well as it did! That's great. It's already profitable, it's going to sell well on disc, it's going to get some significant awards boosts, and it was a non-mainstream movie that enjoyed critical and commercial success. Was it ever going to open big? Never. Ever. If you think about it, Film District releasing that in 2500 theaters was a minor miracle. And I love them for it.

I think marketing is the main reason for Drive's "underperformance" at the box office. Honestly, I like these sorts of hard, edgy flicks and, judging from the previews, I thought it was a "Fast and Furious" rip off. My guess is a lot of other moviegoers did, too. For what it's worth, "Drive" reminds me of "True Romance" in that it's hard to market, yet very good. Like TR, I think "Drive" will still most likely stand the test of time.

Dolphin tale seems like a pack of M&Ms. It sets up expectations, and then immediately feeds them (even if it feeds them with really tasty M&Ms like the new ones with the pretzel bits inside). Even if it's a little surprising (what, no peanuts?) it's still widely and uniformly pleasurable. Drive, on the other hand, challenges all those expectations. No kidding the flyover states have trouble getting on board with the protagonist. Everyone has trouble getting on board with the protagonist. It sets him up as a shy, secretive good guy, who’s exploited by everyone in his life. He finds the girl and finally finds his own personal and pure agency. Then Refn slowly reveals the depths of this guy to illuminate these haunting levels of savagery, rawness and depravity. He's been hiding his soul, and we made an assumption about him as a generally good guy. Then Refn spends the next hour challenging the audience to see just how far we'll go with him. Ok, he graphically shoots someone in the head. But I guess that’s ok because it was like...self defense. Ok, now he’s executing a guy in an elevator with a head-stomp. Um…i guess he was caught up in the moment? Uhhh. Ok, now he’s methodically, and coldly setting a trap, and then hunting down a guy on a beach, only to drown him in darkness. Etc. Etc. With each act, Refn escalates his calculation, premeditation, and cruelty. The violence in this film was challenging our expectations as well. I can’t remember a wide-release...since maybe Casino, that used violence this effectively. I walked out of Drive saying “that’s a better Cronenberg film than Cronenberg has made in decades”. I love how you saw it behind the video-game kids. This violence was not entertainment. It was AWFUL. It was horrific and shaking and a welcome departure from the war-porn/torture-porn that’s been filling theaters since at least the 80s. Sam Peckinpah would be proud. It’s purpose isn’t to entertain you, but to shake you up. It’s a fantastic tug of war, the bubbling tension sucks you into the protagonist and the horrific violence kicks you out again. To me, Drive is as much an internal war of protagonist identification as anything else. It totally affected me on a base level, as I was tested to travel farther and farther with an increasingly unlikeable narrator. It's not a surprise it's underperforming at the box-office. The genius is that it messes with the essential link between viewer and protagonist. It essentially violates the feeling of safety provided by the darkened theater. That's not usually a recipe for financial success. (but as you can probably tell, I loved it.)

Thanks for this article, Scott. I'm really looking forward to seeing Drive but will probably have to wait for DVD to see it in English. These kinds of movies are always high on the list at our house. But Dolphin's Tale is the kind of movie I want to write. Is that usual? I would love to write the next ET! I believe that family films can and should be good, entertaining and not schmaltzy. I'm happy to see that both films have their audience and will make money and that there will be requests for more like each of them in the future.

Is it just me who has been struck by the similarities in Drive and Walter Hill's film of 1978? In addition to the obvious similaritys in the titles, the two main characters are close to identical. They are both unnamed and goes by the nickname Driver. They are blond, blue-eyed and cold to the borders of the psychopathic. One could see Drive as a kind of inverted prequel to The Driver. If Ryan Gosling Driver survives, he could be Ryan O'Neals Driver, if you know what I mean… An older, more cynisk version of the same guy. Besides the similaritys in the main characters, the aesthetic influences are apparent, many scenes in Drive is nigh on identical to the older The Driver. I wouldn’t call it a rip off, I love both movies and choose to see it as a tribute - but if Nicolas Winding Refn, Hossein Amini (screenplay) and perhaps even James Sallis (who wrote the book) have not seen Walter Hills The Driver, I will eat my hat. Be that as it may, but as a writer, I think it is interesting to point out where influences come from and how to do something new in an old tradition. So, now I intend to read Walter Hills script and compare it with Aminis, to see if I can learn something. Both are available here. Would be interesting to hear what you have to say on the subject.

Whups, messed up the links there... Sorry. Hope you can fix it. The scripts are available on http://www.mypdfscripts.com/

I enjoyed the car chases in Drive and thought it was a fun watch (saw it in a packed LA Arclight), but like many indie novelties, I think it's been overhyped, hence the high expectations that weren't met. Many people have praised it for its intensity, but I personally think this is less because of the power or originality of its story/message (or violence, which we've seen many times before), but more for its relentless lack of humor to relieve the tension it builds. It’s a bit of a hat trick. Unlike some of the other films it's been compared to for shared violence (goodfellas, casino, any tarantino flick), it was nearly completely devoid of humor. Instead of a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, it was more of a steady downhill decline that I guess reads as intensity for some viewers, but ultimately puts it in the category of a one-dimensional, referential genre mashup that takes itself a bit too seriously (pregnant pause, anyone?) and will never have broad appeal because it hits you more in your head (and possibly gut) than in your heart. I’m glad Drive was made and had fun watching it, but unlike other small films that really got word-of-mouth/keyboard legs (The King’s Speech, Little Miss Sunshine), and unlike masters of violence like the Coens, Scorsese and Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, equally violent, was the #1 movie its first 2 weeks out), it lacked the humor/humanity/dimensionality that would make it a widespread hit. That said, I haven’t seen Dolphin Tale, but I feel safe guessing that it lacks a darker/more cynical/ironic dimensionality that would appeal to urban audiences, myself included. Goes to show what a challenge it is, especially in a politically/culturally divided country, for a film to transcend to the level of universal appeal.

This was just posted on Deadline. Long story, short: Drive was the most zapped ad on tivo (i.e people who fastforward through an ad), with 24.6% of the audience doing just that. http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/are-dvr-ad-zappers-signalling-trouble-for-three-musketeers/

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