Brad Pitt to star in Apple's new F1 project
Sir Lewis Hamilton signed on as a producer
Brad Pitt’s upcoming Formula 1 film has a home: Apple Original Films.
Joseph Kosinski, director of the smashing success “Top Gun: Maverick,” will be directing the untitled film, which will be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, and seven-time F1 World Champion Sir Lewis Hamilton.
Additional producers are Kosinski and Chad Oman of Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Copper CEO Penni Thow serves as executive producer.
What’s The Film About?
According to The Sun, the film will center on a retired driver who returns to racing to help a younger teammate.
The plot is also similar to that of the ‘Braking Zone’ story told in the recent F1 2021 console game.
Why Does This Matter?
We’re at a point in Formula 1 fandom in America where this is news. Movies are made all the time, but a movie starring an A-list actor, a hot director, a blockbuster producer, and Sir Lewis Hamilton could be that jump into the mainstream.
The film is rumored to have a budget of $140 million. That’s not small.
For comparison, the average blockbuster film has a budget of $150 million. When you spend this level of dollars, you are going all in.
This news comes at a time when F1’s media rights in the United States are up for bid.
Among the suspected four bidders, Apple is supposedly not one of them, although I think they’ll be making a strong push.
That Apple still wants in on the F1 action by committing this amount of money to a film about the sport proves this fandom has potential just waiting to be unleashed.
Motorsport films and documentaries have been major successes on both the big and small screens recently.
Rush, which starred Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl as James Hunt and Niki Lauda, was a major hit, grossing almost $100million at the box office.
Netflix’s Drive to Survive doesn’t need any introduction to this site as it approaches its fourth season. And Amazon has an exclusive series documenting the 2021 MotoGP season.
Apple has received widespread acclaim for its football series Ted Lasso and will look to replicate those results as it ventures into the world of motorsport.