Hugh Jackman is in talks to star in Michael Mann’s racing drama “Ferrari,” about Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari. STX will be handling international sales at the Cannes virtual market, and CAA Media Finance arranged the financing and is representing U.S. rights. Mann will give a presentation for buyers on Tuesday.
STX will distribute the film in the U.K. and Ireland, with Amazon eyeing certain international rights. Principal photography is anticipated to start in Spring 2021.
The script, based on Brock Yates’ book “Enzo Ferrari – The Man and the Machine,” and originally written by the late Troy Kennedy Martin (“The Italian Job”), has been reworked by Mann.
The film is set in 1957 when Ferrari’s life – both on the track and at home – started to fall apart. The company he and his wife Laura had built was struggling and his stormy marriage had been rocked by the death of their son, Dino, and his affair with Lina Lardi, with whom he had a second son, Piero. Meanwhile, Ferrari was preparing for a gruelling and dangerous race across Italy, the Mille Miglia. “During the dangerous race, Laura will discover long kept secrets, opportunities will rise and fade, and drivers, like surrogate sons, will push beyond the edge,” according to an STX statement.
“‘Ferrari’ is the story of one summer in 1957 when all the dynamic forces in Enzo Ferrari’s life – as combustible and volatile as the racecars he builds – collide,” the statement goes on. “Mann will bring his passion for the extraordinarily vivid characters and the dangerous world of motor racing in the 1950s to create an epic, cinematic experience.”
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Mann will produce through his production company Forward Pass, along with “Birdman” producer John Lesher, Lars Sylvest, Thorsten Schumacher, Gareth West and Niels Juul.
