He's Collecting Every VHS Copy Of 'Speed'

Everyone's favorite movie centering on a bus rigged with explosives — okay, I'm pretty sure it's the only movie that centers on a bus rigged with explosives — has taken on a new meaning for some dude with a mission. A man is attempting to collect all the VHS copies of Speed . All of them. And he's off to a good start with the over 500 copies he's already amassed. Also, he has a 15-passenger van that he wants to decorate like the bus in the movie. Tell me this isn't the best thing you've heard about today.

The man, Ryan Beitz, spoke with Vice about his collection and the way he came about starting The World Speed Project. This guy is crazy, sure, but not in the way that you expect. He's not an obessive fan of the movie, he's just an obsessive fan of collecting cheap shit that you can find anywhere.

Beitz told Vice of starting his collection,

I lived in Seattle and was super broke, and I had to come up with Christmas presents for my family. Usually I would just, like, dumpster-dive books or something and give them to them, but when I was at the pawn shop they had six copies of Speed, and I thought it would be really funny to get everybody in my family the same gift, even me. I wanted to watch them open them one at a time and go, “Oh, Speed. Don't we already have this?” Somebody else would go, “Oh, Speed. Really funny, Ryan.” Then by the time you went around, everybody would have gotten the same gift from me. Then I could tell them that I love them all equally, you know? Just some bullshit.

He is amazing.

Beitz developed a fascination with the idea of collection many copies of the same thing and this was solidified when he went to a pawn shop that had 30 copies. "I said, 'I’ll take them all.' They sold them to me for 11 cents a copy."

If you've ever been thrift store shopping, you've probably noticed that you start to see the same things over and over again. Personally, I always see old Barry Manilow records. Beitz started seeing Speed everywhere and The World Speed Project was born.

Along with his collecting, Beitz started a Kickstarter (complete with a video, see above) for the project to raise money to fix up his van which needs general repairs and so that itlook exactly like the bus from Speed, of course!

Beitz says a lot of fantastic things throughout the article, so I really suggest you read the entire thing, but two of my favorite quotes are the one about his financial plan:

"I don’t want to spend money on this. If a copy’s more than $4, I’ll just steal it."

And his response to being asked if he's really trying to collect all of them:

"Yeah. People always go, “Dude how many of these things are you going to get?” And I'm like, “All of them, duh."

If you'd like to contribute to The World Speed Project, check out Beitz's Kickstarter page. (But really, you should just check it out anyway.)

Image: Project 2525/Kickstarter