The popularity of Formula 1 has exploded over the past few years. Interest in the sport has been boosted, and crowds of new fans have been attracted from the USA. In part, this goes back to Netflix’s Drive to Survive series and to U.S. media giant Liberty Media buying Formula One Group and its sport’s commercial rights. Now, it looks like Apple TV also wants a slice of the (apple) pie.
Clearly, there is an appetite for racing movies, and now there is a new one on the horizon, with a Hollywood star attached to it. Academy Award-winner Brad Pitt has been a long-time motorsport enthusiast. He has narrated a MotoGP documentary (Hitting the Apex), attended a number of Grand Prix, and has been the official starter of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world-famous endurance race. Now, it is revealed that he has been working on putting a film together that will revolve around motor racing (à la Hollywood). Apple, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Disney, Netflix, MGM, Sony Entertainment, and Amazon reportedly had been trying to gain the rights to produce the blockbuster movie. Film industry insiders claim Apple has eventually won the bidding war.
Deadline reports, “Apple is in exclusive negotiations and will close the first big film package of the New Year. That’s the highly competitive race to acquire an untitled pitch package that will have Brad Pitt playing a racer who comes out of retirement to mentor a younger driver and take his final stab at glory on the track as the younger driver’s teammate.”
But what do we know about the film so far, and what can we expect from it? Is it really going to co-star Lewis Hamilton?
The Plot
The untitled project is said to revolve around a retired driver who returns to racing in a bid to mentor a young racer to victory, insiders told The Sun. The story sounds pretty much like the premise of Driven, a Formula 1 flop from 2001. The movie starred Sylvester Stallone, who played a former world champion convinced to come out of retirement to aid a car rookie. This time, Pitt will play the veteran racing star of the story. Pitt is now older than any Formula 1 driver who has ever gone full-throttle on the grid.
Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, Tron: Legacy) is rumored to be directing the project while Jerry Bruckheimer (NASCAR’s Days of Thunder, Top Gun) is said to be co-producing with Pitt’s Plan B production company. Ehren Kruger (The Ring, Top Gun: Maverick, Reindeer Games) is known to be attached to writing the script. Pitt and Kosinski are repped by CAA, which handled the auction. Pitt also is represented by Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Interestingly, Kosinski and Pitt have teamed up before to adapt U.S. racing legend Carroll Shelby’s biography Go Like Hell to the big screen. However, the project eventually fell through. Shelby’s battle with Ferrari at Le Mans got turned into James Mangold’s Ford V Ferrari, which grossed over $225 million and starred Christian Bale.
Deadline cites sources saying the untitled Pitt F1 movie package was “in the $130 million-$140 million range, before above-the-line compensation.” The blockbuster budget foreshadows that we can probably expect something in the vein of Ron Howard’s Rush and the above-mentioned Ford V Ferrari.
The Cast: Will Lewis Hamilton Be Brad Pitt’s Co-Star?
Seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton is already linked to Brad Pitt's project, but it is not known if he is on board to produce or take on a role. He and Kosinski’s Top Gun was already strangely connected in the past. “I was trying to get in Top Gun because I’m a massive fan… I had an opportunity to do it and I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have time to do any filming,” Lewis Hamilton previously told Boss Hunting. The 37-year-old driver appeared in Cars 2 in 2011, Cars 3 in 2017, and had a strange cameo in Zoolander 2 in 2017. Hamilton has also appeared in online gaming, most notably in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare as Officer Carl Hamilton and Cars 2, the computer game. Hamilton had previously found himself an entertainment agent and sought out an acting coach.
Talking with The Sun, Hamilton said, "I don't know if I am ever going to be good at movies, but I'll give it a try." Hamilton has also been showing interest in music and fashion for quite a while. Maybe, just maybe, it would be better for the Mercedes driver to focus on driving, especially seeing the team’s 2022 season so far.
Release Date
There are no more details, including a title, plot, or confirmed release date so far. But this little has been enough for streaming platforms and studios to jump into a months-long bidding war. The news marks Apple’s second partnership with Brad Pitt. He is already attached to another big-budget Apple TV+ feature deal that will see Brad Pitt and George Clooney as lone-wolf fixers.