A new film documenting probably the worst year in Enzo Ferrari’s life will debut on December 25 from the American film distribution company Neon.
It’s the latest film from director Michael Mann, best known for “The Last Of The Mohicans,” “Miami Vice,” and “Heat.” A new trailer released on Wednesday shows lots of Ferraris.
“Ferrari” will document Enzo Ferrari’s life via one of the worst years in the brand’s founder’s life: 1957. Adam Driver is almost unidentifiable as Ferrari, while Penelope Cruz plays his long-suffering wife and CFO, Laura Domenica Garello. From Variety:
Ferrari is going broke, he’s just lost a son, his drivers are dying and he is fighting with his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), who doubles as his chief financial officer. Laura doesn’t know that Ferrari has a son with Lina (Shailene Woodley), his true love and mistress, who lives in a country house outside town. The only way Ferrari can keep his company and his life together is if his racing team does well in the upcoming Mille Miglia, a fatality-ridden 1,000-mile race across Italy.
Of course, things don’t go well for Ferrari during the 1957 Mille Miglia race. Race car driver Alfonso de Portago (played in the film by Gabriel Leone) blew a tire 40 miles outside of the race starting point in Brescia, Italy. The resulting crash ended the lives of de Portago, his co-driver Edmund Nelson, and nine spectators who were standing along the highway, five of whom were children. The crash nearly ended the Ferrari’s racing program and Ferrari himself caught manslaughter charges, along with the tire manufacturer. Both Ferrari and the manufacturer were later acquitted.
Mann told Variety he’s been working on “Ferrari” for three decades. Not only that, Mann is thrilled that the big Hollywood execs currently screwing over actors and writers haven’t had a hand in this one. From Variety:
As the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes rage on, Mann is proud that his film has no ties to the major studios. The director told Variety in an August cover story, “The origins of the movie and the content of the screenplay and the movie that you saw do not fit into the kind of film that would be embraced by the conventional studio system. It’s truly appropriate that it is an independent film being distributed by Neon, a very independent distributor.”
The “Ferrari” screenplay was adapted by Mann and the late Troy Kennedy-Martin from Brock Yate’s 1991 biography “Enzo Ferrari — The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine.”
The film is set to debut at the Venice Film Festival this week, with an American release date set for Christmas, according to Deadline.