Following this morning’s release of the trailer for the big-budget “F1” film, producer Jerry Bruckheimer has given an interview that aims to clear up some misconceptions about the movie.
The film marks a behind-the-scenes reunion of multiple talents from “Top Gun: Maverick” including director Joseph Kosinski, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, and several producers including Bruckheimer.
However a lot of the chatter about the film has been about the expense of making it. F1 is a sport for the uber-rich and the film is being done in partnership with Formula 1 and its ten teams.
Last year’s strikes played havoc with the film’s scheduling and reports suggested some reshoots were required due to time-related sponsorship issues. Reports also indicated that the film’s budget has swollen to around $300 million.
Talking with Deadline, Bruckheimer disputes that budgetary figure, saying it is costing considerably less thanks to tax rebates and sponsorship tie-ins to the sport itself:
“It’s completely, unfortunately, tens of millions of dollars out of whack in the wrong direction, and in the right direction for us.
What people don’t realize is, first of all, we’re shooting in rebate [locations], England has a big rebate, lots of Europe has rebates and so does Abu Dhabi. It all lowers the budget.
Plus, we’ve raised more money for our car [through sponsorship] than some Formula 1 teams. You take that all into consideration and it really drops that number quite a bit lower than what people would think.”
Bruckheimer also shot down any talk of reshoots, and in fact they used the time of the strike to get all their non-actor involved second unit photography completed with Kosinski himself reportedly doing all of it:
“We never re-shot anything, nothing whatsoever. It’s a misnomer, a rumor that got spread. No, once the strike happened, we just focused on the cars, and focused on the driving [with the stunt drivers, not the actors]. We made a smaller unit, cut down our staff and everything to save money. And then we just carried on to all the different tracks. We basically finished all the second unit stuff.”
It has also revealed that the film boasts over an hour of footage in full IMAX and will shoot scenes in Silverstone, Hungary, Spa (Belgium), Monza (Italy), Zandfoort (Netherlands), Japan, Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi and Mexico City before it fully wraps.
Brad Pitt stars as a former driver who returns to Formula 1 in the movie, alongside Damson Idris as his teammate at the fictional APXGP team. Real F1 drivers will feature and the film incorporates events from F1 races.
Warner Bros. Pictures is distributing “F1” which is off to the races from June 25th 2025 and hits U.S. cinemas June 27th 2025.