For years, filmmaker Michael Mann was trying to make a movie about Enzo Ferrari, the Italian motor racing driver, entrepreneur, and eventually the founder of the Ferrari automobile marque. It looked as though “Ford Vs. Ferrari” might have killed the project at one point, but whatever dents made in the hood of Mann’s project, they appear to have been long fixed. Today, the producers of “Ferrari” unveiled the film’s first look, including two pictures of its stars Academy Award nominee Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari.
Production is still underway on the highly anticipated film. “Ferrari” also stars Academy Award winner Penélope Cruz as Laura Ferrari, Shailene Woodley as Lina Lardi, Patrick Dempsey as racing car driver Piero Taruffi, Jack O’Connell as racing car driver Peter Collins, Sarah Gadon as Linda Christian, and Gabriel Leone as the charismatic Fon De Portago.
Mann’s talented crew on “Ferrari” includes Oscar-winning director of photography Erik Messerschmidt (“Mank”), Oscar-nominated production designer Maria Djurkovic, two-time Oscar-nominated costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, and two-time Oscar-winning editor Pietro Scalia.
Mann is directing from a script by Troy Kennedy Martin (“The Italian Job”) and himself, based on Brock Yates’ book, “Enzo Ferrari – The Man and the Machine.” Mann’s producing the picture through his Moto Pictures alongside P.J. van Sandwijk and John Lesher, as well as John Friedberg, Lars Sylvest, Thorsten Schumacher, Gareth West and Thomas Hayslip with major support from producers Andrea Iervolino & Monika Bacardi and their production service company, ILBE, and are joined by Executive Producer, Niels Juul.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Ferrari is set during the summer of 1957. Ex-racecar driver Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for one son and the acknowledgement of another. He decides to counter his losses by rolling the dice on one race – 1,000 miles across Italy, the iconic Mille Miglia.
Proudly filming on location in Italy, Mann brings his passion for the extraordinarily vivid characters who created the fusion of art in motion and racing power that is Ferrari in an epic, cinematic experience set in the volatile and dangerous world of motor racing in the 1950s.
No official word on a release date, but the fall 2023 film festival circuit feels like a good bet on a place to premiere the film and probably in Venice. Take a look at the first look photos below.
