Brad Pitt’s upcoming Formula One movie, which is said to be one of the most expensive movies ever made, gets a release date. Made with a whopping budget of $300 million plus, Pitt’s Formula One movie is reported to be set to release at IMAX theaters. The film is made under the directorial vision of Top Gun: Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski and features an ensemble cast including Pitt, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Damson Idris. Made under the production banner of Apple, the production house has made a massive investment in filming scenes during the 2023 British Grand Prix, with Pitt behind the wheel of a modified Formula Two car.
While the audience highly anticipates the yet-to-be-titled film, the wait seems to be over, as according to Collider, the movie is reportedly set to be released in IMAX theaters on June 27, 2025. The film was first announced in 2021 and follows a fictional Formula One driver who comes out of retirement to mentor and eventually team up with a younger driver on the Apex Grand Prix team.
Apple has high hopes for Brad Pitt’s Formula One Movie
With Brad Pitt’s name attached to a project, the anticipation of the film is obvious to rise. While fans have high hopes for the big-budget movie, Apple also expects a huge IMAX performance from the Formula One movie. Since the movie will be arriving at IMAX theaters, the large-format experience provided to the moviegoers has become a crucial part of Apple’s strategy to maximize the sale of movie tickets.
The recent blockbuster movies like Oppenheimer, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Dune: Part Two also opted for the same strategy by having an IMAX screening that contributed to their massive box office success.
However, despite having a huge IMAX haul, Pitt and Kosinski’s race car movie is unlikely to approach the final box office tally for Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick, which took in $1.493 billion in 2023. Even the aforementioned films had their own advantages that made them a blockbuster film. For instance, Oppenheimer rose on the tide of a name-brand director promising an overpowering visual experience. Dune: Part Two had the advantage of being sci-fi, a traditionally bankable genre. Avatar: The Way of Water enjoyed a built-in audience thanks to the massive success of the original movie. Meanwhile, Pitt’s upcoming movie has none of those advantages. Hence, investing $300 million in a racing film seems like a massive gamble, regardless of the fact that two industry veterans, Pitt and Kosinski, are involved in the film.
In a recent interview with The Wrap, the director explained,
“It’s almost funny to me to see people who are so enamored with real photography. Younger people haven’t seen a lot of it. They’re so used to CGI (computer-generated images) being a tool of big movies that when you shoot something for real, it feels innovative. That’s exactly the approach for “Formula One”… to shoot at the real races and real cars and capture it. It’s going to be a huge challenge but an exciting one for me.”
Considering Kosinski’s statement, he seems enthusiastic and optimistic about the project, so now all we have to wait for is the arrival of the movie to see if it justifies the investment.
