Need for speed drives summer box office in US

Aykroyd and Belushi smashed 70 cars in the Blues Brothers (1980); Need For Speed (2014) was purported to pile up a collector's ransom of tortured steel, ranging from a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento and Bugatti Veyron Super Sport to a lean, mean McLaren P1.

And it's no surprise that Paul Haggis drove off with a best picture Oscar for Crash (2004).

Cars are endlessly evocative. Like the factory molds that create them, we shape them in our own image, imbuing them with every symbolic nuance under the sun.

As Vin Diesel so aptly puts it in The Fast and the Furious: "I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters－not the mortgage, not the store, not my team... For those 10 seconds or less, I'm free."

In Hollywood, cars are not just sexy status symbols or poignant plot devices－they are box-office gold. Car-centric franchises have rocked the tollbooth, raking in millions, even billions, in revenues worldwide, such as the Transformers ($1.5 billion) and the Fast & Furious ($1.5 billion).

On the racetrack, while Warner Bros' Speed Racer may have run out of gas at $44 million, Ron Howard's Rush handily crossed the finish line with $90 million, and Will Farrell's hilarious Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby flagged in $148 million.

"I've always had a fascination with cars and racing. I love to get behind the wheel and get competitive ... It helps you focus and dedicate yourself to doing what's needed," says German car-enthusiast and Hollywood star, Jason Statham.

No matter which car flick gets a greenlight next, one thing is certain: Hollywood feels the need for speed.