Its no secret that its taken decades of twists and turns in Hollywood to get Michael Manns anticipated Ferrari, which makes its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival Aug. 31, to the big screen.
But whats less known is that the journey of this biopic about Italian sports car builder and racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari originated with Italys storied Cecchi Gori Group before the company went bust.
In 1991, Los Angeles-based Penta Pictures which had been jointly founded by producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori and then-rising TV mogul Silvio Berlusconi bought adaptation rights to the book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races by Brock Yates that is the basis for Manns picture.
Cecchi Gori subsequently hired Troy Kennedy Martin to write the script and when Penta Pictures was dissolved in 1995 the Ferrari rights went to its U.S. arm, Cecchi Gori Pictures.
The project languished in development until 2004, when Sydney Pollack came on board to direct Ferrari, with Al Pacino playing the lead, but it didnt come together.
Then, in 2006 Cecchi Gori Group which until the mid-1990s was Italys top production and distribution outfit was officially ruled bankrupt by a Rome court after swimming in red ink for a decade. Vittorio Cecchi Gori had branched out from film into television and acquired the A.C. Fiorentina soccer club in a bold expansion attempt that put him in competition with Berlusconi in a direction that went horribly wrong.
A couple years later, enter Los Angeles-based Niels Juul, a partner in international brand recovery firm Nofatego, with a mandate to restructure Cecchi Goris U.S. side, which had been left out of the bankruptcy proceedings.
They hired me to flip it around and see what assets were valuable, said Juul. And I saw two assets of particular value: one was Silence [based the eponymous Japanese novel by Shusaku Endo that in 2016 was made into a movie by Martin Scorsese]. The other was Troy Kennedy Martins Ferrari script with dust on it and an option that had actually expired from the Brock Yates book, adds Juul who renewed that option with Brock Yates widow.
Mann came on board in 2010, according to Juul and Christian Bale came on board to play the lead before bowing out in 2016. But financing finally came together for the $95 million film, which stars Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari, Penlope Cruz as his wife Laura, Shailene Woodley as Ferraris lover LinaLardi and Patrick Dempsey as racing car driverPiero Taruffi.
Though most of the movies budget was provided by STX Entertainment,which is releasing Ferrari internationally, another Italian company, AndreaIervolinoand Monika Bacardis ILBE, has also been instrumental in the film getting made. In 2022, ILBE came on board as line producers. Through Italys Banca Intesa, ILBE provided $24 million that was needed to pre-finance the countrys 40% tax credit. Ferrari was shot on location in around the central Italian town of Maranello, known worldwide as the home of Enzo Ferrari and the brands Formula One racing team.
Mann produced Ferrari under his Moto Prods. banner alongside P.J. van Sandwijk and John Lesher, as well as Lars Sylvest, Thorsten Schumacher and Gareth West, with Juul among executive producers.