Ferrari director Michael Mann details 30 year odyssey to make biopic about Italian motor racing driver… and teasing his desire to make Heat 2

Michael Mann is among the shortlist of filmmakers who have enjoyed tremendous success over the decades, often making a major Hollywood melodrama that is both raw and polished.

But with his upcoming new movie, Ferrari, the acclaimed director, screenwriter and producer is proud to reveal that he has no ties to the major studios, which made production possible amid the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

“The origins of the movie and the content of the screenplay and the movie you saw don’t fit the kind of movie that would be embraced by the conventional studio system,” the 80-year-old revealed in a new interview with Variety. “It’s really fitting that it’s an independent film distributed by Neon, a very independent distributor.”

After reading the interview, with which he also teased his desire to make one Heat 2 foilIt could be argued that Mann began pre-production for his Ferrari film thirty years ago in 1993, when he admits to making his first visit to Modena, where the film was largely shot.

While passing through the island town decades ago, he documented the various places he visited, such as Ferrari’s barber shop, the exterior of his home, and the Cimitero di San Cataldo, the crypt where Ferrari was buried in 1988, 32 years after his death . son Dino was buried in 1956.

All locations eventually made it to the final cut of the film, which will have its world premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, and finally in US theaters in December.

Beginning pre-production thirty years ago, the four-time Academy Award nominee has since made seven films, including Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Collateral (2004) and Blackhat (2015), and starred in he some television. , raised four daughters and co-wrote his bestselling novel Heat 2 with Meg Gardiner.

In the end, it wasn’t until 2021 that Mann got the money needed to realize his vision for the film, which turned out to be $95 million.

“We had very successful foreign presales, and that allowed us to combine it with the Italian tax breaks,” the Chicago, Illinois native revealed to Variety. “That allowed us to make the movie, because it’s not a cheap movie.”

Set in 1957, Ferrari explores three pivotal months in the life of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), the late Italian racing driver and entrepreneur, who was the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, as well as the luxury sports car manufacturer that bears his name. wears.

During this time, Ferrari’s personal and professional lives were on the line. Bankruptcy talks surround the company he and his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), built from scratch a decade earlier, as their marriage teeters on the brink following the revelation of his mistress, as they mourn the death of their only son.

And then there’s the urge to win against his drivers that pushes them to their limits. Next, Ferrari seemingly bets everything on one race, the often-deadly 1,000-mile race across Italy known as the Mille Miglia.

“Everything he’s been collides with what he could become, and the company is out of business,” Mann says of Enzo Ferrari, before adding, “His wife finds out about the other woman.” In real life it is a spectacular operatic melodrama.’

During the new interview, Mann more than claimed that his pre-production for Ferrari began in 1993, when he visited locations significant to Enzo Ferrari’s life in Modena, Italy; the late founder of the luxury sports car manufacturer that bears his name is seen in 1952

The premise: Mann’s Ferrari film, in which Adam Driver plays the title role, is set in 1957 during three crucial months of his life

In addition to Driver and Cruz, the cast also includes Shailene Woodley, Gabriel Leone, Sarah Gadon, Jack O’Connell, Patrick Dempsey, Michele Savoia, Erik Haugen, and Giuseppe Bonifati.

When it comes to creating a compelling story and the filmmaking behind it, Mann claims he’s always looking to create an authentic experience, asking himself some basic questions.

“What is this world?” is often the first thing he wonders. And then there’s ‘How does it feel? And what am I supposed to do to make an audience dream about it?’ He adds, “I know what I want when I go to a movie: I want to be there. I want to be in a wide awake dream for a few hours.’

When Mann is credited with his best work, Heat (1995), starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, he always seems to come out first, which Mann says has had no problems over the three decades since he made it.

Last year, Mann published a 500-page novel titled Heat 2, which he co-wrote with thriller writer Meg Gardiner, and turned out to be a No. 1 New York Times bestseller.

The story again revolves around Neil McCauley, the crew leader played by De Niro in the film, and Pacino’s lieutenant Vincent Hanna, but is written as both a prequel and a sequel to the original Heat timeline.

Another success: Last year, Mann published a 500-page novel titled Heat 2, co-written with thriller writer Meg Gardiner, which turned out to be a #1 New York Times bestseller

Prequel or Sequel: Mann also revealed his desire to make a second Heat movie; the 1995 original, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, was written, directed and produced by Mann

“In the prequel, I don’t want them to be the same people they were in the movie,” Mann explains. “I want them to be very different. It’s what happens to them – the conflicts, the tragedies that happen to them – that make them the people they are.’

As the interview winds down, Mann discusses the possibility of making a second film episode of Heat by revisiting the topic of his mortality posed the previous day.

“If I absolutely had to make Heat 2, I wouldn’t be lost in this wonderful Ferrari story. And it took me two years to write a novel.” he confesses. Fortunately, it became a No. 1 bestseller in the New York Times. The things I’m working on are things that fascinate me and help me move forward.’

Mann pauses for a moment, then adds, “Don’t get me wrong. I want to make it,” he says in a reference to Heat 2. “But if I don’t make it, I’m not incomplete.”