The story of “Ford Vs. Ferrari” is so long and winding. At one point, Christian Bale was going to star in Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” movie with Adam Driver, but he eventually left to star in “Ford vs. Ferrari,” with Mann’s blessing, of course. The film was ultimately made by James Mangold and released in 2019. But there were versions of it before that. One of them was circa 2015 and had director Joseph Kosinski helming the picture with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as his two leads. Back then, it was called “Go Like Hell,” based on the book, “Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans” by A. J. Baime, which “Ford Vs. Ferrari” was also based on (who was going to make “Go Like Hell’ before him? Well, Michael Mann, of course.).
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“I was [going to do that with them]. I was going to make a movie called ‘Go Like Hell’ that became ‘Ford Vs. Ferrari,’ in 2015 with Brad [Pitt] and Tom [Cruise],” Kosinski reminded in a recent episode of Happy Sad Confused where he did a Watch Along to his “Top Gun: Maverick” hit. “And got to the point where I had them both in a room reading the script together, which was pretty amazing.”
Can you imagine? The project fell apart due to the budget being too high (likely Pitt and Cruise costing way too much), but clearly, Cruise had Kosinski on his watch list again after working with him in 2013’s “Oblivion.” Kosinski isn’t upset the movie didn’t happen and said, “It all worked out,” likely meaning the movie that was meant to be made was made. And obviously, he’s about to finish a racing movie, and he’ll have checked off both actors on his to-direct bucket list.
During the conversation, Kosinski also discussed his upcoming Formula One racing movie, not-so-coincidentally starring Brad Pitt, rumored to be called “Apex,” though that’s not confirmed yet. To hear it from Kosinski, he’s trying to do for Formula One what ‘Maverick’ did for aerial dogfights and attempting to push it to the next level.
“It’s an F1 Movie for Apple starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, incredible cast,” he explained. It’s definitely taking everything I learned on ‘Top Gun’ and now applying it to the world of Formula One, which has been an enormous, enormous challenge, but again, I can’t wait for people to see what we’ve been able to capture shooting at the Grand Prix, developing a whole new camera system, the next generation of what we did here [on ‘Maverick’] and having actors driving real cars on the track.”
“Brad’s driving,” Kosinski emphasized. “Damson’s driving. It was months of training driving real race cars at speed on tracks during Grand Prix weekends; it’s been pretty amazing.”
It’s unclear if the movie is arriving this year; filming began in the summer of 2023 and may have been delayed by the strikes, but Apple will surely be behind in a big theatrical way whenever it’s ready to roar (it’s definitely on our Most Anticipated 2024 list if it arrives this year). You can watch the entire conversation below.
