Academy Award winner Javier Bardem has joined Brad Pitt in director Joseph Kosinski’s upcoming Formula One movie. Revealed in a report by Deadline, Bardem will star in the movie as a Formula One team owner and friend of Pitt’s former driver Sonny Hayes, with the prospect of seeing Bardem share the screen with fellow Academy Award winner Brad Pitt a hugely exciting one.
Known for starring in the likes of the James Bond outing Skyfall, the Oscar winning No Country for Old Men, the sci-fi epic Dune, and more recently The Little Mermaid, Bardem rounds out a cast that includes Pitt, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and real-life Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, with Outside the Wire and Black Mirror star Damson Idris set to take the lead as rookie prodigy Joshua Pearce, who is mentored by Pitt’s one-time F1 legend, Sonny Hayes. The project, which will reportedly be titled Apex, will center on the relationship between the pair as they strive to carve out a legacy on the track.
As well as it's all-star cast, the project is also set to involve as much real-life action as possible. After the resounding success of Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski was quick to seize his next project, a Formula 1 racing movie starring Brad Pitt in the lead. Apple is producing the film, currently going by the working title, Formula One. However, it will get a worldwide theatrical release before heading to streaming. And just like Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski plans to keep things real (literally) and deliver more jaw-dropping thrills with Formula One, swapping fighter jets for race cars this time around.
One of the reasons why Top Gun: Maverick feels so immersive is because the filmmakers placed cameras inside the planes. That not only captured the actors’ reactions as they sustained severe gravitational forces but also put the viewers right with them. Joseph Kosinski is aware of how popular that approach was with moviegoers and hopes to replicate it with Formula One. In an interview with The Wrap, Kosinski said:
"But certainly seeing people react to an in-camera, authentically captured film like Top Gun makes us all feel good that our approach works and is appreciated by audiences. It’s almost funny to me to see people who are so enamored with real photography. Younger people almost haven’t seen a lot of it. They’re so used to CGI [computer-generated images] being a tool of big movies that when you shoot something for real, it feels innovative. That’s exactly the approach for Formula One … to shoot at the real races and real cars and capture it. It’s going to be a huge challenge but an exciting one for me."
Joseph Kosinski also throws shade at the widespread prevalence of CGI in modern movies, saying that a practically shot film feels "innovative" nowadays. Kosinski is no stranger to working with extensive visual effects either, as he debuted with 2010’s Tron: Legacy, which was nearly all CG. However, he has since shifted to other genres with films like Oblivion, Only the Brave, and Spiderhead.
Apple Won A Hard-Fought Bidding War For Formula One
"Brad Pitt headlining a racing movie helmed by Joseph Kosinski" was enough to spark a major bidding war among the top Hollywood production houses. Ultimately, Apple emerged as the winner, reportedly shelling out $140 million for Formula One. The film will be produced by Kosinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, and seven-time Formula One champion Sir Lewis Hamilton.
Formula One is written by Ehren Kruger (Top Gun: Maverick, Scream 3) and stars Brad Pitt as a driver who comes out of retirement to mentor a promising rookie and race alongside him one last time. Formula One feels a lot like a spiritual sequel to 1990’s Day of Thunder, also produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Tony Scott.
Seeing as how the Fast & Furious can almost be categorized as science-fiction now, it’s safe to say the car racing genre has come to be underrepresented in Hollywood. Ford v Ferrari was the last major motorsports film, and it turned in a moderate profit. Gran Turismo is also in development with Neill Blomkamp, another proponent of practical filmmaking. It looks like adrenaline junkies have a lot to look forward to in the coming years.
Formula One doesn’t have a release date yet is now in production, with filming happening as we speak.