Fans of fast-moving red objects that aren’t Superman, rejoice. A movie about the life of Ferrari founder and motorsport grandee, Enzo Ferrari, is heading our way and Robert De Niro is aboard to play the Italian racer/engineer in a film entitled simply Ferrari.
The Guardian, which picked up the news from Il Messaggero, has the film spanning 1945 to the 1980s, a period of Ferrari’s life that saw him emerge from a racing career to spearhead the Ferrari team’s successes in ensuing years. "It is an honour to tell the life of an extraordinary man who revolutionised the world of motor sport,” De Niro told the Italian broadsheet. "The film will go into production soon, mostly in Italy, and has absolute priority over all my other projects.”
That’s bad news for another hoping to see Little Fockers 2 – both of you – but an indication of the kind of passion the mythological car manufacturer stirs in even the most famous of his followers.
Early word has Clint Eastwood interested in directing, provisional on a script likely to be written by Nixon scribes Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson.
Putting the cash together on this one are Triworld’s Gianni Bozzacchi and De Niro’s own Tribeca marque. Bozzacchi promises big budgets for the race scenes and an “epic” feel for a subject yet to get the full feature film treatment, despite Michael Mann’s best efforts in the ‘90s. Currently this private and, at times, secretive man has only a single documentary made about him - 2003’s Ferrari – so there are plenty of untapped tales to, well, tap.
Ferrari, who died in 1988, was 24 years younger than De Niro when the film is touted to pick up. While some handy prosthetics will be needed, it’s a juicy proposition for an actor who’s been short on worthy parts in recent years.