By A spokesperson for Formula 1 has denied a report that emerged yesterday in the English tabloids regarding “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski’s Formula 1 film for Apple Studios.
Brad Pitt will play Sonny Hayes, a retired driver who returns to the race track to train an up-and-coming prodigy. Pitt filmed scenes for the movie at Silverstone’s British Grand Prix earlier this Summer with hours of footage reportedly captured.
The Sun reported on Tuesday that the project had allegedly “stalled” and claim a good chunk of the already filmed footage, recorded prior to the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike, had to be scrapped due to a “row over sponsorships”.
The report has subsequently been dismissed by an F1 spokesperson who tells Jalopnik that all footage captured at events in the UK and Hungary remains ‘relevant’ and the movie is still on track for its 2025 release. Their statement reads as follows:
“The movie is still on schedule for its original 2025 release timeframe. All footage captured this year is relevant.
The movie will continue shooting at Grands Prix in 2024, with Brad and Damson driving actual cars on track for racing sequences.
The movie will ensure continuity with the 2023 F1 season in footage captured in 2024. There are no changes to any movie sponsors, and all are committed for the duration of the project.
The production has been adapting its schedule before and during the SAG strike and has planned to shoot into 2024 for some time.”
Even if changes in sponsorship had occurred, it is rarely a problem with filmmaking and is often fixed digitally these days without issue.
Racing icon Sir Lewis Hamilton is involved in the project, reportedly assisting with the script. Further scenes were originally due to be filmed at this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix but Hamilton confirmed those will no longer go ahead due to the shifting schedule caused by the strikes. He tells Crash.Net:
“Brad and Damson [are] back in training getting ready to get back in the car. We were supposed to be filming this weekend. If there wasn’t a strike we would have been filming one of the really cool scenes here this weekend.”
Pitt leads a cast that includes Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, and Tobias Menzies. Jerry Bruckheimer produces.
The post Pitt’s F1 Film Still On Track For 2025 appeared first on Dark Horizons.
