We’re sort of wishing the great Murray Walker would be available to commentate on this news story. Because just when Robert De Niro and the producers behind **Ferrari were thinking they might have the track to themselves when it comes to biopics of car racing legend Enzo Ferrari, HERE COMES MICHAEL MANN, WHAT A SURPRISE CONTENDER, BREAKING AWAY FROM THE PACK TO TURN THIS INTO A REAL CHASE… Sorry, got carried away in true Murray style.
But it’s true: Mann is now attached to guide a competing, as-yet-untitled biopic about Ferrari, who redefined the high-powered Italian sports car and was partly responsible for kick-starting Formula 1 racing. Mann has taken two existing scripts, one by The Italian Job’s Troy Kennedy Martin and another from Out Of Africa’s David Rayfield and put them through a Seth Brundle-style merging process to come out with one script. Everything is based on Brock Yates’ 1991 book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races.
“Mann is very passionate about this project and people are interested,” enthuses producer and Cecchi Gori Media boss Niels Juul. He has some financiers already making promises and will be touting more rights deals at this years Cannes film market. With luck, Mann should be sending cars speeding around tracks next year.
It’ll be a relief for Juul's company, which has been trying to get the project off the starting grid for years, with one version in 2004 combining Al Pacino as Ferrari and Sydney Pollack directing, but ultimately stalling when Pollack died in 2008. Of course, there’s still the De Niro version to think about, but that is still in search of a director, while Mann will need to lock in someone to play the motoring genius.