Per Deadline, Apple are nearing a deal to acquire a pitch package that will see Brad Pitt play a Formula One racer who comes out of retirement to mentor a younger driver and take his final stab at glory on the track as his teammate.
Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, Oblivion) will direct from a script Ehren Kruger (Scream 3) is writing. Jerry Bruckheimer will produce alongside Pitt’s Plan B Productions.
Sources say the package was in the $130-$140 million range before above-the-line compensation, similar to other package deals made in 2021. Paramount, MGM, Sony Universal, Netflix and Amazon were all a part of the bidding war.
Apple have frequently targeted film packages with big stars attached, which has led them to developing thriller Emancipation with Will Smith, Martin Scorsese‘s Killers Of The Flower Moon with both Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro on board, and Ridley Scott‘s Kitbag which stars Joaquin Phoenix, to name just a few.
The company actually locked down another film with Pitt just a few months ago, when they acquired the rights for an untitled film from Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts that will see Pitt and George Clooney re-team to star as two lone wolf ‘fixers’ assigned to the same job.
Pitt remains one of the few movie stars around, and there is also hope that Kosinski’s name will only become more well known after Top Gun: Maverick finally arrives in May after multiple delays.
Pitt and Kosinski actually previously tried to make a racing movie together. Titled Go Like Hell, Pitt would have played Carroll Shelby in a film constructed to be The Right Stuff on the race track.
That project didn’t work out, but a version of Shelby’s story was told in Ford v Ferrari, with Matt Damon playing Shelby and Christian Bale playing British driver Ken Miles.
Although there aren’t too many details on the film right now, expect Pitt and Kosinski to adapt many of the ideas from that previous project and use them here.
Since winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Pitt has signed on to a number of interesting projects which include David Leitch‘s action film Bullet Train and Damien Chazelle‘s period drama Babylon, while also continuing to produce movies like Minari and Kajillionaire through Plan B.
If those aforementioned films hit, expect Pitt’s post-Oscar bump to continue – he had only appeared in two films in the three years prior to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood – and more intriguing films with him to get the green light.
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