Briana Bermensolo

KTVB

MOSCOW, Idaho — One local man said he dedicates his free time to collecting copies of the movie Speed, the 1994 thriller starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

"One time, I bought 30 copies from a store," says Ryan Beitz, who wants to be the sole owner of all VHS copies of the film.

It all started as a joke seven years ago, when Beitz bought six copies from a pawnshop.

Now, "we're running a Kickstarter to get the van fixed up and painted like the bus from the movie Speed. It's so we can travel the country, come to your town and get copies of Speed," Beitz told KTVB.

It's rare to come across VHS tapes today in a world of DVDs. Beitz says he had 550 VHS tapes of the movie as of April 23.

"A lot of people just donate them to me. They send them from all over. I've got a few from Japan," he says. "I would buy them all off of Amazon, but the shipping costs $4 when the copy costs a penny. It's ridiculous."

It could be Beitz's enthusiasm that's made his obsession go viral.

Beitz started the World Speed Project in 2007. His one-man mission took off in April and was picked up by NPR, Good Morning America and a Japanese reality-TV production company.

"No one ever really knows if the work they're doing is making the world a better place or not, but they don't give up. That's how Speed works. We just have to keep going no matter what," Beitz says.

Asked to estimate how many copies of the movie he wanted to get his hands on before he would stop looking, Beitz says:

"No, I'm never giving up. I can't stop my whole life because I'll never know. So I'll die looking for Speed."