Apple is back splashing the cash to snatch big projects away from other studios and streamers. According to Deadline, the company is now locking down a deal to produce a Formula One drama starring Brad Pitt that has Top Gun: Maverick's Joseph Kosinski attached to direct.
The untitled pitch would see Pitt as a veteran driver who comes out of retirement to mentor a younger wheelman on the F1 circuit, and take his final stab at glory on the track as the younger driver’s teammate. Ehren Kruger is on to write the script, while the film has Jerry Bruckheimer producing and racing legend Lewis Hamilton involved as a consultant. Studios Paramount, MGM, Sony and Universal all wanted to land this one, as did Netflix and Amazon, but Apple has slapped down around $130-140 million to buy the pitch.
This is not the first time that Pitt and Kosinski have attempted to make a racing film: back in 2013, Pitt was attached to Kosinski's project Go Like Hell, which would have chronicled the rivalry between Ford and Ferrari at Le Mans, which if the story sounds familiar, eventually reached the screen (with Matt Damon and Christian Bale starring) as James Mangold's Le Mans '66 in 2019.
And the new movie marks the second Pitt pic for Apple – it already has an untitled thriller that reunites him with George Clooney, the pair playing two lone wolf “fixers” assigned to the same job. Spider-Man: No Way Homedirector Jon Watts is overseeing that one.