Kevin Costner voices a dog who loves car racing in the trailer for The Art of Racing in the Rain. Funny as it sounds, 2019 has been a pretty big year for live-action movies featuring “talking” dogs. Case in point: Bryce Dallas Howard lent her voice to the canine star of A Dog’s Way Home in January, and Josh Gad only just reprised his four-legged character from A Dog’s Purpose in this month’s sequel, A Dog’s Journey. Now, the Oscar-winning Costner’s lending his vocals to another doggo in this summer’s adaptation of Garth Stein’s best-selling 2008 novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Written for the screen by Mark Bomback (War for the Planet of the Apes) and directed by Simon Curtis (Goodbye Christopher Robin), Art of Racing in the Rain tells the story of Denny Swift (Milo Ventimiglia), a wannabe Formula One racer, from the perspective of his witty canine companion Enzo (Costner). The film’s release date was only recently bumped up from September to August, as part of Disney’s schedule reshuffling following the completion of its purchase of Fox’s movie and TV assets. As such, the marketing is getting started a little earlier than previously expected.

Fox has released The Art of Racing in the Rain trailer online, along the first official poster.  You can check them both out in the space below.

The trailer offers a fairly broad-stroked, but otherwise none too revealing, rundown of the film and its overarching narrative. All in all, the promo makes Art of Racing in the Rain look like a pretty straightforward, family-friendly drama about a person and the major events in their life (pursuing their dream career, getting married, having children), as told from the perspective of their ever-faithful furry companion. However, the trailer also leaves out a central element of Stein’s source material; namely, Enzo hopes to be reincarnated as a human after he dies, which is why he’s so focused on studying the human condition through Denny’s experiences, and becomes obsessed with racing in the first place. It’s pretty different from Marley & Me in that way, despite what the poster would have you believe.

Assuming the movie doesn’t stray from Stein’s book in that regard, The Art of Racing in the Rain may ultimately resemble A Dog’s Purpose in the way it folds philosophical musings and themes about spirituality into an otherwise relatively grounded story about a human and their loving dog. It’s possible Fox is concerned moviegoers will perceive Curtis’ adaptation as being a ripoff in that respect, which would explain why they’ve chosen to shy away from that aspect in the marketing and focus more on Costner voicing a wise beyond his years, but also adorable pup who loves to race in cars instead. Of course, it remains to be seen if that’s enough to convince audiences this isn’t just the same movie about a philosophizing dog they’ve seen before, released under a different title.

Source: 20th Century Fox

  • The Art of Racing in the Rain Release Date: 2019-08-09