Useless Movie Trivia
Driven
Memorable Quotes
Carl Henry: What about the fear?
Joe Tanto: It's gone.
Carl Henry: The fear is never gone.
Trivia
The film's luxurious 'Hotel Selin' is named after director Renny Harlin's friend, producer Markus Selin.
Portions of the film were shot at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada - home of the only Formula 1 race held in Canada.
Some of the sounds are not of CART Champ Cars, but rather of Formula One cars. The movie was originally supposed to be about Formula One racing, but due to restrictions imposed on the production crew, the producers had to look elsewhere.
The name of a character in the film, Memo Moreno, is a combination of two actual race car drivers in the CART series: Memo Gidley and Roberto Moreno.
On one of the cars is an advert for "Dog Chow". In the movie Showgirls (1995), Gina Gershon (who plays Cathy in "Driven") famously talks about how she used to love to eat Dog Chow.
Sylvester Stallone's original script was 220 pages long.
Much of the racing footage is from actual IndyCar, Indy Lights, Formula Atlantic and various CART events in the 1990's.
Sophia Simone does some synchronized swimming moves in the movie. Estella Warren who plays this character had been a synchronized swimmer for many years.
The reporter in the Toronto press conference scene is played by Brian Jennings, the film's visual effects supervisor.
The two team cars that are featured in the movie use the sponsors and paint schemes that were used at the time of filming by an actual CART team called PacWest Racing.
The original premier race of ChampCar on the Eurospeedway in Germany in 2001 was stopped after a crash in which Alex Zanardi lost both legs.
The finish of the last race of the season is reminiscent of the finish to the CART race at Portland in 1997. Only in the Portland race the first 3 cars finished within 0.055 seconds of each other.
Jimmy Bly's helmet is almost the same as former CART/Champ Car driver Mark Blundell's helmet. The only difference is Blundell's has his initials MB on the top as opposed to JB on Jimmy Bly's helmet. Blundell also drove for Pac West Racing which Jimmy Bly's car is based on.
The helmet design used by Beau Brandenburg is actually used by Juan Pablo Montoya in real life. Joe Tanto has Mauricio Gugelmin's design.
In the scene before the last race (Detroit), real Champ Car drivers are portrayed doing pre-race rituals. 'Kenny Bruck' , the driver of the Shell car, tapes a picture of a baby inside his race suit. The baby in the picture is Renny Harlin's son, Lukas.
Renny Harlin is in the movie as a crew member for two different teams. He is first seen as a PacWest/Motorola crew member who gets out of the Motorola car so that Jimmy Bly can demonstrate that he can get out of the car in 5 seconds. Harlin is then seen in a Bettenhausen/Herdez uniform taking his real life son Lukas to a playground.
Sylvester Stallone originally conceived the film as a biopic of Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, a very popular three time Formula One champion who tragically died during a race in 1994.
Sylvester Stallone was asked in an interview about films he would wish had not done, and he listed this as one of them.
Goofs
Some of the racetracks are clearly doubling as others on the tour, and even when the correct location is used there are often obvious hints that some shots were taken elsewhere. Some shots of "Tokyo", for instance, are very obviously of Chicago and Toronto, and yellow cabs can be seen in Germany where taxis tend to be eggshell colored.
Methanol, the fuel used in CART racing cars, does not float on water as gasoline does - alcohol will mix very happily with water. It also burns with a barely visible flame, unlike gasoline which burns with the yellow flame and thick black smoke shown in the film.
Sophia enters nightclub in a lacy top with nothing beneath. In the next cut she has the lacy top in her hand, but now has a black blouse on where there was none before.
While performing the "coin trick", Tanto picks up coins with his left rear tire, but once he pulls into the pits all three coins are on the right rear tire.
After Jimmy and Beau has saved Memo from the explosion, Memo's car is clearly seen in the water, lying in the same position as when they dragged Memo out of it, showing that no parts of the car has been blown up.
Box Office Info For The USA
Budget: $72,000,000
Opening Weekend: $12,174,504 (USA) (29 April 2001) (2,905 Screens)
Gross: $32,616,869
Filming Dates: July 6, 2000 to October 12, 2000.
Filming Locations
Chicago Motor Speedway - 3301 S. Laramie Ave., Cicero, Illinois, USA
Detroit, Michigan, USA
EuroSpeedway Lausitz, Klettwitz, Brandenburg, Germany
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Homestead-Miami Speedway - One Speedway Boulevard, Homestead, Florida, USA
Long Beach, California, USA
Montréal, Québec, Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
(Molson Indy Toronto 2000)
Twin Ring Motegi, Northern Kanto District, Tokyo, Japan
Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada