Legendary Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer spent “three years” convincing Red Bull it wouldn’t be the villain of the upcoming Formula 1 movie.
Red Bull’s fears stemmed from Mercedes‘ involvement in the Brad Pitt-starring project, which is simply titled F1.
The Silver Arrows have provided the film with the cars used for filming, with Mercedes and AMG logos adorning the black and gold liveried machines driven by Pitt and co-star Damson Idris.
Moreover, Lewis Hamilton, through his production company Dawn Apollo Films has been a consultant on the project and given the intense rivalry Red Bull has had with Mercedes over the years, its fears could be justified.
“The interesting part is that, since we teamed up with Mercedes, the other teams said ‘wait a second, this movie is going to be about Mercedes and we’re going to look bad,'” Bruckheimer said in a panel discussion with outgoing Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei at a recent investor meeting.
“Red Bull said ‘we’re going to be the villains’.
“It took us three years to convince them that they weren’t going to be the villains and we finally got to a place where all the teams are really leaning into us to really help us.”
Bruckheimer explains reasoning behind F1 movie title
The F1 movie has been busy filming at several Grands Prix in 2024, with Pitt, Idris and company forming an 11th team in the paddock.
On-track filing with cars has taken place at several circuits, Pitt and Idris have mucked in at the media pen at Silverstone and the former was seen celebrating in front of the Mexico City GP crowd last month.
Clearly, a lot of effort has gone into making the film as immersive as possible, but perhaps not with the name, F1.
Bruckheimer explained that the title came about “because the greatest racing movies were Le Mans and Grand Prix, and now there’s going to be F1.”
F1 features Pitt as veteran racer Sonny Hayes, who left the F1 scene in the mid-90s after suffering a huge crash.
Hayes is brought back into the fold by a former friend and APXGP team owner, portrayed by Javier Bardem, to race alongside and mentor Idris’ character, Joshua Pierce.
The F1 movie is helmed by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and is a product of Apple Original Films.
Warner Bros will distribute the film in theatres internationally on June 25 2025 and in North America on June 27, 2025, and Bruckheimer hinted at how the film will premiere.
“I think we’re going to show it to the drivers and to the F1 teams in Monaco and then we’ll have premieres in New York, London and a bunch of other cities,” he said.
“Brad is really invested in this movie. He doesn’t like to do press but I think we’ll take him on a world tour where he’ll be glad to show his efforts in driving and acting in this movie.”
READ MORE – Everything you need to know about the F1 movie
