Bruckheimer Pushes Egos Aside to Get 'F1' in Theaters

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00:00We actually just sat down with Toto Wolff for an hour as well for our podcast, and he gives you,

00:06sends you his best and said he's really impressed by the realism of the film. Tell us how important

00:12that was to you to get it right from, you know, from a realism aspect.

00:19Well, it's really important. I mean, we did it with Top Gun Maverick. We want to do it again

00:23with F1. It was a four-year process to get this thing off the ground and in the right way. It

00:29took almost a year to make F1 comfortable with what we were doing. That was really part of our

00:36journey to make sure that Stefano, what happened is Brad, myself, and Joe Kaczynski, who directed the

00:43movie, flew to London and sat down with Stefano and said, here's the movie we want to make. We

00:48want to make sure that they actually drive the cars, our actors, and how do we get this done?

00:55Fortunately, we have Lewis Hamilton as a partner. He was terrific. He's one of the producers on the

01:00movie. He made sure that we got it right, but that creates a problem because you have Lewis

01:05Hamilton, who was at the time in Mercedes, and they have this huge rivalry with Red Bull. So Red Bull,

01:11for sure, was going to be the villain in their minds. So it took us almost a year to get all these

01:15teams comfortable and drivers comfortable that we're going to tell a story about our two drivers. And

01:20F1, which has 10 teams, two drivers to each team, but it's the only sport in the world where your

01:25teammate is also your competitor. So everybody wants to be the number one driver. So how do we

01:31navigate this with all these teams and make sure the FIA is comfortable? And it took us a year,

01:37but we got there and we got unprecedented access to the tracks, to the drivers. We interviewed

01:43everybody. Everything you, I don't know if you've seen the movie, but everything you see in the movie

01:46is accurate. Happened at one time during F1 over the last 75 years. Some of the things,

01:53the antics that the drivers have pulled, but the fact that Brad and Damson took four months off to

01:58get in these cars and we start them in a road car, put them in an F4 car, put them in an F3 car,

02:04and finally got them into our car, which was built and created by Mercedes, as I said earlier.

02:10Jerry, we've seen Formula One really grow in popularity in the U.S., especially in the last few

02:17years. What about motorsport is so compelling to you personally, but also to viewers?

02:24Well, I grew up in Detroit, so that's Motor City. So right away, I'm interested in cars to begin with.

02:29It's ingrained in my DNA. But that sport is, and I really didn't know much about F1 until I saw Drive

02:36to Survive. And it was really Joe Kaczynski who came up with the story and came to me after we

02:41finished F1. He said, we should make this movie about this extraordinary sport. So I think that,

02:47as I said, the first call we really made was to Lewis and say, come on in. And one of the

02:52prerequisites for the story to get Brad involved, he said, I have to drive. I'm not going to make a

02:57movie that's going to be green screen and process. So they took the energy and time to spend four

03:05months driving these cars. How much of a problem was his age? You know, because we're seeing these

03:11kids driving Formula One that are, I mean, Kimmy's 18 years old, right? So Brad Pitt has to be at least

03:18as old as me. He's in the second half of his century. How did you overcome that?

03:24Take a look at him. He doesn't look like it. He looks amazing. He takes care of himself. He worked

03:30out. Listen, when he wasn't on the track, he was in the gym working out to make sure he could handle

03:35the rigors of this sport. It's so difficult to drive these cars. And, you know, they're in

03:42Singapore. It's over 100 degrees. Most will be 120 in those cars. They're exhausted. So Brad and

03:47Damson trained off the track and then they drove. So they were in really good shape by the time we

03:55started the movie. So they can handle the brutality of what these cars throw you through. You're going

03:59in five G's in some of these corners. But, you know, Toto and Christian, all these team principles

04:06really helped us, Fred, Zach, to create a story that's accurate. And we interviewed everybody.

04:15I don't know if you've seen the movie, but this whole thing with the socks where he has two

04:19mismatched socks. That came from Williams, who told us that one of their drivers

04:24came to the track and had two mismatched socks and the first time he ever won a race. So he did that

04:30from there on. There's a lot of them are superstitious. We use that in the movie. This

04:34is this is was a great experience for me because we're so lucky we get dropped into a world we'll

04:40never be a part of and live that life in this instance for four years. And that's what we do for

04:45an audience. We drop you into a world which is F1, which is really exciting and make you feel what

04:51it's really like to be an F1 driver and be part of an F1 team. And that takes you on a journey.

04:57This movie is so immersive between the sound, the visuals, but it's always about the emotion. It's

05:03not about all the bells and whistles. And you don't have to be know anything about driving or know

05:08anything about F1 to really enjoy this movie. In fact, most people come into this film, especially

05:14from this country, don't know know very little about F1. But by the time they leave, they're interested in

05:20the sport. They feel they've had an amazing ride because we've transported them into another place

05:25another time. And they feel a part of that experience. Jerry, obviously, we've had some

05:32other great driving and racing films in the past. Of course, Steve McQueen made one or two. Ford versus

05:39Ferrari was pretty popular. Were there films that you referred to either as a do this or don't do that

05:48when you were creating this film? I think, you know, Joe and Brad and everybody looked at all

05:53those movies and they learned from them. And what's interesting is the technology that they had versus

05:59the technology that we have is so different. I mean, our cameras are a third the size of what we use in

06:06Top Gun. And we had six of those in the cockpit. Now it's even smaller. We had 15 camera positions

06:11on our car. You only could use four at a time. And it was even harder for our guys to drive than the

06:18real drivers because they had four cameras staring at them all the time. So they had to look around

06:23these cameras while they were driving the movie. We also created a special type of camera that we

06:28didn't have at Top Gun, which is a remote control camera, which can pan and move as we're going 180

06:36miles an hour. So we had to build antennas that are all around the track to be able to use this

06:41remote camera. So that adds to the excitement and the thrill of the movie. What we're trying to do

06:46is be seamless so you don't realize that we're actually making the movie, that you're following

06:51the story, you're excited by it, and you're in that F1 car with our characters. Jerry, I have not

06:57gotten a chance to see it yet. When I do, I want to make sure and see it in a theater because I want

07:02that experience of the big screen. I want the Dolby Atmos playing all around me. How important

07:08is it to you that people see your films in the theater as opposed to on streaming at home on a

07:14TV? Look, for this movie, you want to see it on the biggest screen possible. You want to go to IMAX.

07:20You want to hear that Dolby sound, that Atmos. It's just so experiential to be part of it. It's a thrill.

07:27If you want to go and have a thrill for a night with your wife or your girlfriend or your friends,

07:31this is the perfect outing. It's something that, A, gives you a lift, makes you feel good,

07:38takes you away from the chaos in the world for over two hours. That's what we try to do. Let's

07:43forget about everything. Let's forget about the world. You get in Brad Pitt's world and Damson's

07:49world and Javier Bardem and Carrie Condon, which is a fantastic cast. A lot of the Academy Awards in

07:56there and nominations in that group. They're the best of the best. We had Aaron Kruger write the

08:02screenplay, who wrote Top Gun Maverick. You're going to get the same kind of thrills we gave you

08:07in that movie.

08:07Jerry, I have to ask, since you've made this film, are you now a race fan? Are you a formula fan? And

08:16who's your team and who's your driver?

08:18Well, obviously, it has to be Lewis. I mean, it can't be anybody else because he's a great friend

08:24and a phenomenal driver. And Ferrari was terrific, as was Toto in making this film. In fact, we have

08:33Toto in the movie and Fred from Ferrari and Zack are actually in the movie as a bunch of other

08:38Christian. They're all kind of have moments in the film, as a lot of the drivers do, too.

08:44So that was fun just being in their world. And I love it now. I follow it every week.

08:50Well, I can't wait to see the movie. Congratulations on putting this film together. I think it's

08:54something that race fans have been waiting for for decades. And I hope you guys are really

09:00successful with it. Jerry Bruckheimer, appreciate your time.

09:03Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.

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