Why Brad Pitt’s mysterious $300m Formula One movie is stuck in the pits
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Is Brad Pitt’s Formula One movie late to the finish line? The untitled project was announced at the end of 2021 and has revved up the rumour mill ever since, with reports of delays, distributor problems, and a budget that’s raced past the $300 million mark – which would make it one of the most expensive films ever made. The F1-backed film, a co-production between Apple Studios, overblown action producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, is a somewhat risky endeavour. Racing movies, after all, aren’t exactly a sure thing at the box office.
Just as Tom Cruise swapped cockpits – from Top Gun to Days of Thunder – Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski is at the wheel, bringing the 6K camera technology developed for the Top Gun sequel’s fighter jets. “It’s going to be really good,” Brad Pitt told former F1 driver Martin Brundle in an interview last July. The film does indeed sound like it will be incredible; that’s if it ever actually arrives.
One bad sign is that it doesn’t even have a title yet. The Internet Movie Database lists the film under the rather unsexy “Untitled Formula One Racing Movie”. MotorSport, however, says that one rumoured title is “Apex”, which sounds more like it for a macho, adrenaline-fuelled race film – and sounds like the film’s fictional F1 team, APX GP.
What we do know is that it follows the lead of the John Frankenheimer-directed Grand Prix (1966) and Steve McQueen-starring Le Mans (1971), both of which used real-life racing footage. Pitt himself was on-hand for filming on the track at Silverstone around last year’s British Grand Prix. Some reports around the film have veered far off track. But it’s true that production hit a wall thanks to the SAG-AFTRA strike between last July and November. By this point it feels like filming has been dragging on for longer than Mission: Impossible. So, when will it race into view? And what do we know about the film so far?
We may not know the name of the film, but the story details have been doing the rumour circuit for a while now – and it sounds like classic sports movie fodder.
Brad Pitt will play Sonny Hayes, a hotshot F1 driver in the 1990s. But – following a devastating accident – Hayes has left F1 and now races in other competitions. (Some filming took place at this year’s Daytona 24-hour race, with Pitt’s character driving a Porsche 911 GTD, which gives us an idea of where Sonny is when the movie begins).
Like Rocky Balboa before him, Hayes is coaxed out of retirement – in this case by Javier Bardem’s motorsport boss, whose AXP GP team is lagging on the racetrack. Sonny is brought back to F1 as “kind of a Hail Mary” (Pitt’s words) to partner with and mentor a young driving prodigy Joshua Pearce, played by the British actor Damson Idris.
As Pitt told Brundle, the real-life Formula One is fully behind the project. Following the success of the Netflix documentary series, Formula One: Drive to Survive, F1 brass has cottoned on to the power of cinematic publicity. Stefano Domenicali, the F1 CEO, told investors that Pitt’s film would be good for promoting their sport.
“It will be quite invasive in terms of production,” he said. “It’s something that we need to control in a way, but it will be another way of showing that F1 never stops.”
Some early reports suggested that Brad Pitt would drive along real racers at actual GPs as part of an “11th team”. According to racing website The Race there was “some hysteria” about the rumours, as fans have complained about F1’s refusal to allow an actual 11th team to compete – part of fan frustrations with Liberty Media, which took ownership of the Formula One Group in 2017. “Some people will inevitably complain that opening up a live paddock and especially the starting grid to filmmakers was a further sign of the erosion of the sporting side under Liberty Media,” wrote Scott Mitchell-Malm for The Race. “And proof the priority is now the spectacle.”
It turned out to be an exaggeration. Indeed, when the production turned up to film at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix last July, The Race credited the film crew for staying under the radar: “It was impressive how the production team avoided getting in everybody’s way.”
As part of the trip to Silverstone, the production revealed the sort-of fictional APX GP car. It’s actually an F2 car that’s been modified by Mercedes to look like an F1 racer. The cars are covered with cameras – including what camera experts have described as the smallest moveable 6k camera ever – to capture the racing action and put viewers inside the cockpit with the actors. “You’ve never seen speed... you’ve never seen G-forces like this,” Pitt told Martin Brundle. “It’s really, really exciting.”
The car has a gold and black livery, which MotorSport compared to the Haas team’s cars in 2019 – though X users also likened the APX GP car to a giant Duracell battery.
With filming taking place around the Grand Prix, the fictional APX GP crew had a very real-looking set-up at Silverstone, with two garages located along the pit lane – one each for Pitt and Idris’s drivers – with replica gear, a hospitality unit, telemetry equipment, and signage. “Although the ever-present raft of camera crew and film equipment always ensured the mirage never quite took full hold,” wrote The Race.
The garages were situated between the Mercedes and Ferrari teams, and they were trained by Trevor Carlin’s team (Carlin is the founder of Carlin Motorsport).
Brad Pitt did drive at Silverstone – but not in the Grand Prix, of course. He got behind the wheel for scenes that were filmed after the weekend’s qualifying event, which takes place the day before the actual race. Pitt – who had previous track experience on motorbikes, but not cars – told Brundle that being around the real F1 drivers was “really humbling”. “I don’t know if you’d call mine a hot lap,” he joked. “It’s call it kind of a warm lap. I’ve taken a few tours unintentionally through the grass.” (Substitute drivers saved Pitt’s blushes and performed some wheel-to-wheel racing at Silverstone.) Pitt added: “As a civilian, I had no idea... I had no idea what it takes to be a driver – the aggression and dexterity. They’re amazing athletes and I’ve got some much respect for it.”
Pitt also attended the drivers’ briefing and explained their filming plans. Lewis Hamilton called it “probably the best drivers’ briefing we’ve ever had”.
Hamilton – who came third in the British Grand Prix – is producing with his own production company, Dawn Apollo. The company is also producing a documentary film about Hamilton’s life and career. “I’ve always been into movies,” Hamilton told Deadline when the company launched in 2022. “I watch a lot. I find it a real escape.”
Hamilton is also working in an advisory consultant role – to ensure authenticity and reverence. Pitt said that Hamilton was “really intent that we respect the sport – that we really show it for what it is.” MotorSport reports that Hamilton – who drives for Mercedes – helped Kosinski choose the best camera positions at the British Grand Prix and oversaw frame rates “to ensure the cars look as fast as possible”. (Hamilton almost landed a gig as a pilot on Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick but it didn’t work out.)
The closest that Pitt seems to have come to real Grand Prix action was some shots of him and Idris walking to their cars – and lining up with the drivers for the national anthem. Pitt and Idris were well hidden on television by crafty camera work.
The APX GP cars did take position behind the actual racers for the formation lap – a slower lap that takes place before the race starts for real – and were also kept out of view on television coverage. They set off a few seconds after the real racers. One of the APX GP cars swiftly detoured down an escape road, while the other car – as seen by a Redit users who was there – stalled and sputtered and was hastily wheeled off grid. Pitt reassured armchair experts that any spinouts and stalls were done “by design”.
The crew were meant to attend six other Grand Prix events in 2023, but filming was thrown off course due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Filming didn’t resume properly until the Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi GPs in November. Though the production was on hand at the Italian Grand Prix in September, where they shot pit stop footage. The mechanics were filmed pretending to change tires on the APX GP car.
F1 photographer Kym Illman posted on Instagram that smaller units had managed to get some footage at other GPs too – though without the principal actors.
Filming is now back on track, with production set to continue across the Formula One 2024 season. According to Illman, “large scale filming” will take place at Silverstone, Hungary and Spa, with smaller shoots planned for Japan, Mexico, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. He also estimates that crews of 300-400 are on hand at the races.
There seemed to be more bumps in the road with reports that the strike delays had caused continuity errors, because the sponsorship deals for the movie had changed post-strike. Supposedly, millions of dollars’ worth of footage was unusable and needed to be reshot. An F1 spokesman rebuffed the claims, saying, “the movie is still on schedule for its original 2025 release timeframe” and that “all footage captured [in 2023] is relevant.” The spokesperson also confirmed that Pitt and Idris would drive on the race tracks during the 2024 season to capture racing scenes.
Of course, all that petrol and horsepower – not to mention star power – doesn’t come cheap. Recent reports claim that the film has surpassed $300 million, which would put it in the bracket for the most expensive films ever made – certainly pushing it near the top 10. And racing films are renowned for taking pole position at the box office. Ford vs Ferrari performed well enough, though Michael Mann’s Ferrari – starring Adam Driver – crashed last year. It made just under half its $95 million budget back – and Pitt’s film has cost three times that so far. According to Koimoi, the F1 film will need to make a massive $750 million to break even.
And while the film is apparently aiming for a 2025 release – according to the F1 spokesperson – it doesn’t appear to have a distributor other than Apple TV. It seems inconceivable that a movie of this scale, with this kind of technical innovation, would head straight to streaming.
Koimoi reports that “Warner Bros and Sony are at the forefront for distribution, but the film’s high budget and financial demands upfront are causing headaches even for the big studios. Consequently, the release date for Brad Pitt’s Formula One racing film is still uncertain.”
If Kosinski pulls it off, this movie could be a technical, adrenaline-pulsing triumph – a film destined to stand on the winner’s podium and get doused in champagne. Better that than a race to the bottom.
