Brad Pitt has been working on a movie about life in Formula 1 for a couple of years now. The movie, which has Lewis Hamilton onboard as a producer, began filming last year but was forced to suspend shooting when the actor’s strike hit. Now, the project is back on track with a budget that could make it one of the most expensive movies ever made.
The F1 movie, which doesn’t yet have a title, will reportedly follow an older race driver who’s called back into the sport alongside a young star. So far, crews have been spied filming actors Pitt and Damson Idris during the buildup to F1 events at places like Silverstone and the team was even on track at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Now, a report has revealed that the film’s budget could be well over $300 million as costs for the flick spiral. Production delays and the price of putting actors in real race cars are the cause of the mounting budget, reports Screenrant:
According to Puck’s Matthew Belloni, the budget for Brad Pitt’s Formula One movie has ballooned to over $300 million. If accurate, this would make it one of the most expensive movies ever made and, as a result, is facing numerous obstacles to being released. While being produced for Apple, the film still doesn’t have a theatrical distributor or release date attached.
Obstacles that have added to the mounting budget include delays as a result of the 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike, which pushed back the movie’s filming schedule.
Another, obviously, expensive point is the film’s decision to put actors in real race cars. For the movie, modified Formula 2 machinery has been made to look more like F1 cars. Actors Pitt and Idris have then been put onto the track, with their every move captured in the cockpit. This bring with it added production costs and safety measures, which all add up.
The $300 million budget puts it alongside flicks like ‘Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning,’ which also had a particular focus on realism, and the original “Avatar” movie. Because of the sky-high costs, the F1 film will reportedly need to rake in more than $750 million at the box office to break even after things like marketing and distribution costs are taken into account, according to a report from industry watchdog Koimoi.
However, Deadline adds that Sony would expect to take home around eight percent of the box office takings if it were to take on the project, which is exactly what happened when it distributed Apple project Napoleon last year. A similar deal would hit Apple’s bottom line after bankrolling the F1 project.