Tom Holland and Austin Butler to play drug-smuggling race car-driving brothers

American Speed will star Holland and Butler as the Whittington brothers, who funded their racing careers with proceeds from drug smuggling in the 1980s.

By William Hughes  |  November 1, 2024 | 4:05pm
Photos: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images, Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Film News Tom Holland
Tom Holland and Austin Butler to play drug-smuggling race car-driving brothers

Fulfilling, at last, the prophecy set forth in our monumental fan-novel What If Spider-Man And Elvis Became Friends?, Deadline reports today that Tom Holland and Austin Butler are teaming up for a new movie where they play professional race car drivers who are also international drug smugglers. Specifically, the pair of Hollywood A-listers will star together in American Speed, which will tell the story of real-life Texan brothers Bill and Don Whittington, pro drivers who eventually both spent time in jail in connection with a scandal from the 1980s that saw drivers fund their careers through drug smuggling.

This news comes after what’s been an extremely busy couple of weeks for Holland, who’s clearly building up for his next push after dipping out of the acting game for a minute. Marvel recently scheduled his fourth Spider-Man film for July 2026; meanwhile, Christopher Nolan has tapped Holland for an upcoming movie. Butler’s 2024, meanwhile, saw him starring in AppleTV+’s Masters Of The Air, as well as getting a supporting role as a very monochrome knife guy in Dune: Part Two. Behind the cameras, American Speed is being written by Dan Wiedenhaupt, whose previous major credit was the 2018 Kodi Smit-McPhee Good Dog movie Alpha. No director is attached, presumably because who needs directors to get a movie sold, you’ve already got Tom Holland and Austin Butler on the hook for this thing.

The Whittington brothers are infamous in racing history for the massive scandal they brought down on the IMSA racing organization, as the government came after them for smuggling what were alleged to be tons of marijuana into the States in order to pay for the cards that go so very fast. Bill Whittington, who died in 2021, was eventually sentenced to 15 years in jail for tax evasion and conspiracy to smuggle pot, while his brother Don (still alive) got 18 months on money laundering charges. Oh, they also raced airplanes, and won the famed 24 Hours Of Le Mans auto race in 1979; some people may, in fact, be pre-disposed to having too much fun.

 
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