Before “Ford v Ferrari” got home with two Oscars what feels like a decade ago, the racing drama spent years in development hell. Though Matt Damon and Christian Bale starred in the final film, “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski almost made a different version. Now, Kosinski is finally opening up about his take on the film, and it almost starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
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Speaking in a Collider-hoster Comic-Con@Home panel, Kosinski talked about the project that eventually became “Ford v Ferrari.”
Kosinski came on board in 2013 to direct “Go Like Hell,” based on a 2009 book by A.J. Baime. Sadly, the project sadly didn’t go much further than casting. “I wouldn’t say we got close to production, but I got to the point where I had Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt at a table read, reading the script together,” Kosinski said. “But we couldn’t get the budget to the number it had to be at, and it was the right number. So that was the one for me that got away. But I was thrilled to see that they ended up making an amazing version of it.” According to Kosinski, Cruise was on board to play Damon’s character Carroll Shelby. Meanwhile, Pitt almost played Ken Miles, the character Christian Bale played in the final film.
Even before Kosinski, the project was already in development back in 2009 in the hands of Michael Mann, also with Brad Pitt attached. At least Mann is still working on his own Enzo Ferrari biopic with Hugh Jackman.
Kosinski doesn’t seem to hold a grudge, and the director praised the finished film by James Mangold. “The script was the same, and I think [Mangold’s] approach was generally how I was going to do it, which was real cars, real racing — obviously, making it with Tom, that’s the only way that it would be made,” Kosinski said. “In some ways, what we did for ‘Top Gun,’ we were going to do for car racing with mounted cameras and all that.”
“I thought [Mangold] did an excellent version and I thought Christian Bale and Matt Damon nailed the characters, so that was a case where you go in going, ‘God, I hope this is good because I love the story so much.’ I actually saw it with Tom and we were both thrilled when we saw it. It’s a weird thing to see someone make a movie of something that you had kind of got close to making, but they did an amazing job with it.”
You can watch the full panel below: