In case you weren’t already going apeshit at the prospect of seeing a Formula 1 movie starring Brad Pitt with seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton involved, director Joseph Kosinski has accelerated the hype train with an extremely tasty promise: the forthcoming production will deliver practical “in-camera action” similar to Top Gun: Maverick with nary a frame of CGI (or any other special effects shortcuts).
“Certainly seeing people react to an in-camera, authentically captured film like Top Gun: Maverick makes us all feel good that our approach works and is appreciated by audiences,” Joseph Kosinski recently told The Wrap.
“It’s almost funny to me to see people who are so enamoured with real photography. Younger people almost haven’t seen a lot of it. They’re so used to CGI being a tool of big movies that when you shoot something for real, it feels innovative.”
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“That’s exactly the approach for Formula One [working title]… 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.”
As we’ve communicated time and time again, Kosinski’s long-awaited sequel starring Tom Cruise and Miles Teller was a technical marvel rich with aerial sequences that likely won’t be topped for years to come. But it didn’t come cheap.
In addition to cast members undergoing a rigorous “boot camp” program conceived by Tom Cruise himself, there was the matter of renting out US Defense Department assets. According to Bloomberg, renting those F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets cost Paramount Pictures as much as US$11,374 / AU$15,822 per hour.
Military publication SOFREP, on the other hand, asserts the true operating cost of an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet is closer to double the headline-making amount, hovering around the US$22,000 benchmark. Meaning Paramount may have landed a bargain.
One can only imagine how much it’d cost to rent a real-life Formula 1 car considering how you need upwards of $150 million to develop a top-level machine and as much as $400 million in previous years — which is far more expensive than anything a Hollywood movie has churned out in the way of practical effects.
Thankfully, they don’t have to build a car from scratch, nor does the car have to win the 2022 constructors championship. It only needs to look and feel the part. Plus there are plenty of rides from previous generations Formula One could definitely repurpose with a shiny new chassis.
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Formula One – which was recently acquired by Apple for a tidy sum – will see Brad Pitt take on the role of a veteran F1 driver who comes out of retirement to mentor a “promising rookie.” Think Driven starring Sylvester Stallone… but better. Way better.
Screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Reindeer Games, The Ring, Top Gun: Maverick) has been tapped to pen the story, with Lewis Hamilton signed on as a producer alongside the legendary Jerry Bruckheimer. In light of what we now know about Kosinski’s desire for authentic grid action, however, the Mercedes superstar could very well be piloting a racing rig for a sequence or two.
This isn’t the first time Brad Pitt has dealt with director Joseph Kosinski, either. Back in 2013, the duo were working on another racing movie titled Go Like Hell with none other than Tom Cruise. Kosinski clearly likes to collaborate with the same people. Eventually, Go Like Hell would fall apart before later becoming James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari starring Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles.
Stay tuned for more details on Joseph Kosinski’s Formula One movie starring Brad Pitt and produced by Sir Lewis Hamilton.
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