Max Verstappen's team feared being portrayed as villains in Brad Pitt starrer F1 movie, claims producer
Brad Pitt-starrer F1 film's producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, recently claimed that Max Verstappen's team, Red Bull, felt that they would be portrayed as villains in the movie. He explained how the filmmakers tried to convince them otherwise.
One of the co-producers of the film was seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Hence, the senior team of the filming crew decided to take help from Mercedes to create F1 cars for a fictional team that was going to be portrayed in the film. The Brackley-based team helped in creating F1 car chassis that were fitted onto F2 machinery so that it would be easier for drivers to handle.
However, when the F1 paddock got to know that F1's film crew was teaming up with Mercedes, several teams thought about how would they be portrayed in the feature. According to Bruckheimer, Red Bull, one of Mercedes' main rival teams, thought that they would be portrayed as villains in the film.
Speaking at the 2024 Investor Day event in New York, he claimed how it took his team three years to convince Verstappen's team that they were not going to be portrayed as the antagonist of the film.
“The interesting part is that, since we teamed up with Mercedes, the other teams said ‘wait a second, this movie is going to be about Mercedes and we’re going to look bad’," Bruckheimer said, via Motorsport.
“Red Bull said ‘we’re going to be the villains’. It took us three years to convince them that they weren’t going to be the villains and we finally got to a place where all the teams are really leaning into us to really help us.,” he added.
The F1 film will feature all the real F1 teams and drivers. Racers like Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, and more. It will also feature real races and media pen activities throughout the season.
Max Verstappen is not too interested in upcoming F1 film
While Jerry Bruckheimer claimed Red Bull was concerned about their image in the F1 film, their star driver Max Verstappen stated that he was not too interested in watching the movie.
Speaking to Formule1.nl, Verstappen said that though he likes Brad Pitt films, he is not interested in a film about his sport. He explained that the drivers were shown a few clips of the film at the Drivers' Meeting ahead of the 2023 F1 US GP. Max Verstappen further said that the film will have a fictional storyline and several moments will be overdramatized, something which he is not eager to witness.
"I like movies anyway and Brad Pitt is of course a super actor. Before the American Grand Prix in Austin I saw a few clips from the new movie. They were shown during the Drivers Meeting with an explanation of how they had filmed it all. Nice to see, no doubt about it, but actually it doesn’t interest me that much," Verstappen said.
"I don’t need to see a movie about my own sport. This movie is of course a made-up story and everything is always over-dramatized, you have to like that. I personally don’t have much to do with that,” he added.
The F1 film is set to release on 25 June 2025 internationally, and 27 June 2025 in the US.