New research of Hollywood blockbusters has revealed which movies have the highest budget when it comes to smashing and crashing cars.
The analysis from price comparison website Uswitch, has a scientific approach to look at the total number of car incidents in a movie and then worked out the value of the damaged car, to give a final total on the producer’s budget.
And while the usual suspects (nope, that is not on the list) such as the Fast and the Furious and the James Bond franchise might be expected to ride high on a list of silver screen smashes, the vehicle value-count may have found some surprise winners.
According to the data, the most expensive movie of car crash mayhem was Avengers: Infinity War, which will have added £387,525.45 to the budget, thanks to an impressive number of vehicles being damaged. In fact the Marvel franchise does very well, with Captain America (Civil War and Winter Soldier), Black Panther, Deadpool 2 and Captain Marvel all featuring in the top ten.
“Throughout the movie, fans watch motors depreciate dramatically, as they are split in half, go up in flames, thrown or crushed, with a total of 19 in-movie cars written off,” said the Uswitch report. “Of these, the vehicles suffering from the worst crash severity include a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta A4 which was blown up, and a Ford Crown Victoria which was split in half - both of which had a crash severity grade of 100%.”
The Blues Brothers is the only old-school classic to make the list, with 28 vehicle smashes, but as the movie was made in 1980 and most of the cars belonged to the police, it doesn’t score too highly financially. Perhaps the biggest surprise on the list is the inclusion of the Wolf of Wall Street, not a traditional car-bashing movie, but it is more about what car receives the damage in this case.
Uswitch says: “One of the most famous car crash scenes in the movie involves Leonardo Dicaprio’s intoxicated stockbroker driving an authentic Lamborghini Countach to and from his local country club, destroying it in the process. This scene is one of the most famous in the film, as is a nod to a true event in the life of former stockbroker and convicted felon Jordan Belfort.”