Hot Wheels: Highway 35/Acceleracers (found work on animated film; early-mid 2000s)

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Acceleracers- Ignition cover art.jpeg

Acceleracers Ignition cover image.

Status: Partially Found

In 2003, Toy Maker Mattel celebrated the then 35th anniversary of their world famed Hot Wheels toyline of 1/64 die cast cars, by the release of the 5 part CGI tv miniseries "Hot Wheels Highway 35: World Race on DVD and later on, aired on the Toonami Saturday Video Entertainment System programming block[1] and rereleased as a direct to tv compilation film. The film and accompanying Video Game and toyline were a smash hit and ensured a sequel two years later in 2005, as a series of tv films aired on Toonami as Hot Wheels: Acceleracers[2] which involves some returning characters and new characters fighting the evil Alien Robotic Racing Drones in mysterious alien worlds known as Racing Realms. Despite Mattel's intentions and most young kids support of the show, many older fans of Highway 35 and various casual viewers loathed it for the darker tone in the story and feeling it lacked the heart of Highway 35. ( including Toonami themselves, going as far to referring the show was "Mattel's Bionicle") [3] and combined with poor toysales and Mainframe's budgetary restraints that let to them shutting down, the show ended on its 4th episode The Ultimate Race with a cliffhanger. For years, fans never knew what became of the show until 2013, when various fan-groups on the now defunct Accelepedia Forum began uncovering documents of what may have been of dubious authenticity as Acceleracers 5:The Truth and began to accept it as fact.

Promo's discovery

In mid 2016, a Redditor on the r/Acceleracers subreddit named Sun619 had made a discovery and told the subreddit that he had found a promo that made him think Acceleracers was continuing via Warner Brothers (who had distributed the films back when they were made) [4] When others asked him for a link, he says he couldn't find it again and now the video had been taken down shortly after its release.

For a while, people doubted Sun619's comment as being true. It wasn't until later on June 30, 2017 that another r/acceleracers Redditor named kevinm0388 had gotten in contact with former writers and Mainframe animators about the matter and had confirmed that such promo did exist and was made for Warner Brothers and Mattel roughly in late 2005 to early 2006 [5] [6] and upon the revelation through San Diego Comic Con 2005's Hot Wheels display, that Acceleracers action figures were to be made featuring the characters that Sun619 mentioned (RD-K1 leading the Drone, Banjee Castillo, a character who was once long thought dead in the show, being alive on the Silencerz team) [7] thus confirming his account on the trailer.

In addition, Sony had trademarked the Hot Wheels: Acceleracers series and copyrighted each film along with "2 Production Materials" in 2009, roughly the same time as Warner Brothers released Hot Wheels:Battle Force 5. The 2 scripts that writers mention drafting were presumably the aforementioned "Production Materials" and allegedly Sony had plans on continuing the series and made a promo for a sequel film (which may have been the same promo as before)[8]

According to Rainmaker Studios, the only way they can release the Promo is if Mattel approved of the release and that the toys were turned into a McDonalds toyline [9] Mattel, when asked about the matter, isn't very helpful and reiterated the same thing Rainmaker says.


Highway 35 unresurfaced Extended footage

In addition, there are some hard to find scenes in Episode 4 of the Acceleracers prequel Highway 35 that were only on TV brodcasts on 2003 Toonami Video Entertainment System block and a rare VCD in Southeast Asia that contained extended and deleted scenes from the episode. [10] some scenes have resurfaced in the Spanish dub, including an extended intro that features the drivers introducing themselves to the audience new to the series.[11] but one scene has yet to resurface in any language, where a character named Dan Dresden says "Yeah, I'm willing to set aside competition...for now"

Video

Frozen Fire unreleased footage (SPANISH)

References


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