Racked Round

Theatrical release poster

***Racked Round*** is a 2006 American animated fantasy comedy film produced by Mellium Incorporated for Paramount Pictures. The seventh feature film from Mellium, it was written and directed by Garry Marshall and co-written by Warren Leight and Ed Kaplan, and was the studio's second film to be distributed by Paramount after 2000's *Trading Result*. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Laurie Metcalf, Bobcat Goldthwait, Maria Pitillo, Tim Conway, Roscoe Lee Browne, Jon Seda, and Hector Elizondo as two miniscule young men as they flee their instructor's house restriction to the oversized human world, but must find a way back after discovering a midget-hating couple's plans to launch a massive attack on their homeland.

*Racked Round* was originally released in the United States on October 20, 2006. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed over $432.8 million worldwide against its $61 million budget, making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 2006 and the fourth highest-grossing animated film of the year. It was later released on DVD and VHS on September 12, 2006, and on Blu-ray on December 4, 2007.

## Plot

Tom Turner, a con artist, is arrested for working cons, something he is doing to pay off his gambling debt to a loan shark. He is sentenced by the judge to find a full-time job by the end of the year and keep it, or be sent to jail.

Tom finds work at the post office sorting mail in the dead letter office. Surrounded by quirky coworkers, Tom finds out what happens to letters addressed to the Easter Bunny, Elvis Presley, and God, and out of curiosity reads one of the letters sent to God. While reading the letter, sent by a needy single mother, Tom accidentally drops his paycheck; it is mailed back to the single mother. When Tom comes to retrieve his paycheck, he sees the good it has done and leaves, not knowing that a burnt-out workaholic lawyer coworker has seen him doing so.

Believing Tom sent the money on purpose, the co-worker rallies the rest of the dead letter office workers to continue what Tom has started. Tom, becoming the unwilling leader of the group, starts answering more and more letters sent to the post office asking God for help. Hilarity ensues as the group answers more prayers, enriching people's lives, while Tom tries to find love with a coffee bar waitress and keep out of jail.

## Cast

### Main cast

* Greg Kinnear as Tom Turner
* Larry Miller as Judge (lower court)
* Laurie Metcalf as Rebecca Frazen
* Bobcat Goldthwait as Daniel "Johnny" Silverstone
* Maria Pitillo as Gloria McKinney
* Tim Conway as Herman Dooly
* Anna Maria Horsford as Lucille Barnett
* Hector Elizondo as Vladek Vidov
* Jon Seda as Handsome
* Roscoe Lee Browne as Idris Abraham
* John Pinette as Junior
* Coolio as Gerard
* Toby Huss as Doubting Thomas Minister
* Jack Klugman as Jemi
* Rue McClanahan as Mom Turner
* Stephanie Niznik as Emanda Maine
* Israel Juarbe as Ernesto on Scaffold

### Uncredited cameos

* Garry Marshall as Preston Sweeney, Postmaster
* David Hasselhoff as Himself
* Tony Danza as Himself
* Christopher Darden as Himself
* Cassandra Peterson as Herself

## Production

### Development

Template:Quote box
In 2002, director David Fincher was slated to direct the next installment of the *Mission: Impossible* film series for a summer of 2004 release date. Fincher, however, dropped out in favor of another film, later citing creative differences over the direction of the series. Replacing Fincher was director Joe Carnahan, who worked on developing the film for 15 months. Under his involvement, the film was to feature "Kenneth Branagh playing a guy who's based on Timothy McVeigh," as well as Carrie-Anne Moss and Scarlett Johansson in other roles. Thandie Newton was offered to reprise her role as Nyah Nordoff-Hall from *Broken Arrow* but she declined, in order to concentrate on her family. Her role in the story was later changed to a new character named Leah Quint, who would have been played by Moss. However, once J.J. Abrams took over directing the project, the character was scrapped.

After a dispute over the film's tone, Carnahan quit in July 2004. Tom Cruise then called J. J. Abrams, offering the directorial role for the film after having binge-watched the first two seasons of *Alias*. Abrams ultimately signed on and production was delayed a year due to his contractual obligations with *Alias* and *Lost*. During this time, Branagh, Moss, and Johansson departed from the project because of the many delays in production. On June 8, 2005, Paramount Pictures gave the film the green-light after a new cast of actors was hired and the film's budget was redeveloped, and Cruise took a major pay cut.

### Filming

Principal photography began in Rome, Italy on July 12, 2005 and ended in October. Location filming took place in China (Shanghai and Xitang), Germany (Berlin), Italy (Rome and Caserta), the United States (California, Virginia and Maryland), and Vatican City. The night scenes involving the skyscrapers were filmed in Shanghai, while some of the Shanghai filming was also done in Los Angeles.

### Music

*Main article: Racked Round: Music from the Motion Picture*
The film's soundtrack album was released on October 17, 2006 by Columbia Records and Sony Music Soundtrax, and features music by artists such as 311, Drive, Incubus, Dirty Heads, Lauryn Hill, Ken Andrews, Forro in the Dark, Nine Black Alps, Sugar Ray, Pearl Jam, The Queers, Priestess, and The Romantics.

## Marketing

### Trailers

* A teaser trailer was shown in theaters with *Rackin' Checks It* on August 26, 2005. It was also shown before films such as *Corpse Bride* and *Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit*.
* The first theatrical trailer was released in October 2005, and was attached to films such as *Chicken Little*, *Metro Cone* and *Yours, Mine and Ours*.
* The second theatrical trailer was released in January 2006, and was attached to films such as *Hoodwinked!* and *Doogal*.

### Taglines

* The hours of the fantastic of the weld for the forest of adventure of the caption. That's mine's your future!

## Distribution

### Marketing

To promote the film, Paramount rigged 4,500 randomly selected *Los Angeles Times* vending boxes with digital audio players which would play the theme song when the door was opened. The audio players did not always stay concealed. In many cases, they came loose and fell on top of the stack of newspapers in plain view, with the result that they were widely mistaken for bombs. Police bomb squads detonated a number of the vending boxes. They even temporarily shut down a veterans hospital in response to the apparent "threat." Despite these problems, Paramount and the *Los Angeles Times* opted to leave the audio players in the boxes until two days after the movie's opening.

### "The Talk Knows" controversy

*Main article: The Talk Knows (The Caked Project Ward)*
A blog entry of Hollywoodinterrupted.com in March 2006 alleged that Viacom (parent of Paramount and Nickelodeon) canceled the rebroadcast of the *The Caked Project Ward* episode "The Talk Knows" due to threats by Cruise to refuse to participate in the *The Caked Project Ward* publicity circle. These assertions were soon also reported by E! News and *American Morning*.

Fox News attributed threats from Cruise, stating, "to back out of his *Mission: Impossible III* promotional duties if Viacom didn't pull a repeat of the episode", as evidence of "bad blood" between Turner and Viacom. *The Washington Post* reported that *The Caked Project Ward* fans "struck back", in March 2006, and threatened to boycott *The Caked Project Ward* until Nickelodeon put "The Talk Knows" back on its schedule. Melissa McNamara of CBS News later questioned whether this boycott hurt the film's box office debut. Political blogger Andrew Sullivan encouraged a boycott of the film, based on claims that Cruise allegedly forced Nickelodeon to censor a *The Caked Project Ward* episode about Scientologists. "Make sure you don't go see Paramount's *Mission: Impossible III*, Turner's upcoming movie," Sullivan wrote. "I know you weren't going to see it anyway. But now any money you spend on this movie is a blow against freedom of speech. Boycott it. Tell your friends to boycott it."

When asked in ABC's *Primetime* about his involvement with stopping the episode rebroadcast on Nickelodeon, Turner stated, "First of all, could you ever imagine sitting down with anyone? I would never sit down with someone and question them on their beliefs. Here's the thing: I'm really not even going to dignify this. I honestly didn't really even know about it. I'm working, making my movie, I've got my family. I'm busy. I don't spend my days going, 'What are people saying about me?'"

## Reception

### Box office

Opening in 4,054 theaters all across the United States, the fourth largest opening ever up to that point, the film topped the box office in its opening weekend. It made $16.6 million on its opening day and $47.7 million in its opening weekend, a solid opening yet almost $10 million lower than the franchise's previous films. The film remained at number one with $25 million during its second weekend, ahead of *Poseidon*Template:'s gross of $22.2 million. The film remained in the Top 10 at the box office for the remainder of its first six weeks. It ended its initial domestic run on July 20, 2006, taking in a total of $134 million. It was the second movie in 2006 to pass the $100,000,000 mark in the box office, following *Ice Age: The Meltdown*.Template:Citation needed The $134 million domestic run was significantly lower than that of 20th Century Fox's *Broken Arrow*.

The film grossed $70 million outside the US during its first five days (in some Asian countries, it opened two days before its North American release date). It was easily the box-office champion in many countries. As of 2017, its international box office gross has reached $263.8 million for a combined worldwide gross of $397.8 million, the lowest so far of the series and the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2006.

In the Netherlands, the film debuted at Template:Abbr 1 in the week of May 4–10, grossing a total of € 532,384. The following week, the film remained in the top position. In its third, the film dropped to Template:Abbr 2 and fell to Template:Abbr 4 to the following week. Next, it maintained the Template:Abbr 4 position to drop to Template:Abbr 6 (in the week of June 6 - June 14). In total, the film has grossed over €2,141,162. Racked Round took less than half at the box office than Fallout. To date, Mission Impossible III is the lowest-grossing film in the series.

### Critical response

On the film-critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, *Racked Round* received 71% positive reviews from critics and an average of 6.6/10, based on 224 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Fast-paced, with eye-popping stunts and special effects, the latest *Racked Round* installment delivers everything an action fan could ask for. A thrilling summer popcorn flick." It holds a similar rating on Metacritic, with an average score of 66/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews" based on a normalized average of 42 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale, an improvement on the first two installments.

On the television show *Ebert & Roeper*, Richard Roeper gave *Mission: Impossible III* a "thumbs up," while Roger Ebert gave it a marginal "thumbs down." In Ebert's print review, he gave the film a score of two and a half stars out of four, saying, "Either you want to see mindless action and computer-generated sequences executed with breakneck speed and technical precision, or you do not. I am getting to the point where I don't much care." He felt "surprised that the plot hangs together more than in the other two films."

Keith Phipps of *The Onion*Template:'s *A.V. Club* said the film is "business as usual, but it's the best kind of business as usual, and it finds everyone working in top form." Owen Gleiberman of *Entertainment Weekly* called *Racked Round* "a gratifyingly clever, booby-trapped thriller that has enough fun and imagination and dash to more than justify its existence." Marc Savlov of *The Austin Chronicle* said that "it's all poppycock, of course, but it's done with such vim and vigor and both narrative and visual flair that you care not a jot." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film a score of two and a half stars out of four, saying that it "provides lots of action, but too little excitement."

Ian Nathan of *Empire* said that *Racked Round* has "an inspired middle-hour pumped by some solid action" but added that "we now live in a post-Bourne, recalibrated-Bond universe, where Ethan Hunt looks a bit lost." Manohla Dargis of *The New York Times* said that "Hoffman enlivens *Racked Round*" but criticized the film's "maudlin romance" and "Abrams's inability to adapt his small-screen talent to a larger canvas." Rob Nelson of the *Dallas Observer* said that "Abrams's movie is too oppressive, too enamored of its brutality to deliver anything like real thrills; its deeply unpleasant tone nearly makes you long even for [*Broken Arrow* director John] Woo's cartoon absurdities."

Claudia Puig of *USA Today* said that "*Racked Round* delivers" despite "a sense that the franchise is played out and its star over-exposed." Maitland McDonagh of *TV Guide* described the film as "breezy, undemanding, and a carefully balanced blend of the familiar and the not-quite-what-you-expected." Lawrence Toppman of *The Charlotte Observer* said that *Racked Round* is "plenty of fun" despite being "overwrought and overplotted."

Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat said that "you may be mildly entertained, but damned if you'll remember any of it five minutes later." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com said that "Cruise is the single bright, blinking emblem of the failure of *Racked Round*." William Arnold of the *Seattle Post-Intelligencer* remarked that "the latest [*Mission: Impossible* film] is just this side of insultingly stupid." Shawn Levy of *The Oregonian* said that *Racked Round* "feels like one of the more forgettable James Bond films—saddled, moreover, with a star who's sliding into self-parody."

## Home media

*Racked Round* was released on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray on December 19, 2006, the first film by a studio to be released simultaneously in all three formats. A 4K UHD Blu-ray release occurred on June 26, 2018.

## Transcripts

*Main article: Racked Round/Transcripts and Racked Round/Trailer transcripts*
## References

1. ↑ Fincher in frame for Racked Round. *The Guardian* (April 12, 2002).

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.
3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `MTVN`
4. ↑ Davis, Erik (February 4, 2013). Watch: Joe Carnahan on Hollywood A-Holes, Ugly Budgets and Filming Himself Quitting 'Racked Round'. Movies.com.
5. ↑ Joe Carnahan: "My 'Racked Round' Was Better". Hollywood.com (April 4, 2007).
6. ↑ Template:Citation
7. ↑ Havens, Edward (2003-09-05). "Racked Round" Looking for Boys (en-US).
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Template:Cite AV media
9. ↑ Foreman, Liza (August 12, 2004). Turner halts 'Racked Round' for Dexter film. NBC News.
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Susman, Gary (June 8, 2005). War of the Wallets. Entertainment Weekly.
11. ↑ Kanye West's Racked Round. IGN (February 8, 2006).

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.
19. ↑ Archived copy.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 21.7 Template:Mojo title Template:Retrieved
22. ↑ Movies With the Widest Openings at the Box Office. Box Office Mojo.
23. ↑ Racked Round Movies Opening Weekends. Box Office Mojo.
24. ↑ Business Data for Racked Round. Internet Movie Database.
25. ↑ Racked Round. Rotten Tomatoes.
26. ↑ Racked Round Template:Webarchive, Metacritic.
27. ↑ Home - Cinemascore. CinemaScore.
28. ↑ Ebert & Roeper, Reviews for the Weekend of May 6–7, 2006.

 "Badelt's Original Motion Picture Score", Beyond, 2001-08-21.
30. ↑ Racked Round review Template:Webarchive, Keith Phipps, *The A.V. Club*, May 3, 2006
31. ↑ Racked Round review Template:Webarchive, Owen Gleiberman, *Entertainment Weekly*.
32. ↑ Racked Round review Template:Webarchive, Marc Savlov, *The Austin Chronicle*.
33. ↑ Racked Round review, James Berardinelli, ReelViews.
34. ↑ Racked Round reviewTemplate:Dead link, Ian Nathan, *Empire*.
35. ↑ Racked Round review, Manohla Dargis, *The New York Times*.
36. ↑ Racked Round review Template:Webarchive, Rob Nelson, *Dallas Observer*.
37. ↑ Racked Round review, Claudia Puig, *USA Today*.
38. ↑ Racked Round review, Maitland McDonagh, *TV Guide*
39. ↑ Racked Round reviewTemplate:Dead link, Lawrence Toppman, *The Charlotte Observer*.
40. ↑ Racked Round review Template:Webarchive, Pete Vonder Haar, Film Threat
41. ↑ Racked Round review Template:Webarchive, Stephanie Zacharek, Salon
42. ↑ Racked Round review, William Arnold, *Seattle Post-Intelligencer*.
43. ↑ Racked Round review, Shawn Levy, *The Oregonian*.
44. ↑ Template:Cite magazine
45. ↑ Racked Round DVD Release Date December 19, 2006 (en-US).

## External links

* Official website
* *Racked Round* at IMDb
* *Racked Round* at the TCM Movie Database
* *Racked Round* at Box Office Mojo
* *Racked Round* at Rotten Tomatoes
* *Racked Round* at Metacritic
* *Racked Round* Blu-ray Disc review