While he’s still waiting for a studio to pick up the title, Michael Mann has scored a huge advantage in that regard, as Christian Bale is on board to star as Italian car mogul Enzo Ferrarri in his film about the man.
While previous reports showed his interest, Deadline’s story confirms that Mann has been working to help get this made for nearly 15 years, and at one point was setting it up for the late Sydney Pollack. Now, he’s firmly in the director’s chair for the story of the man who redefined the high-powered Italian sports car and was partly responsible for kick-starting Formula 1 racing. Mann has taken two existing scripts, one by The Italian Job’s Troy Kennedy Martin and another from **Out Of Africa’**s David Rayfield and bolted them together. Everything is based on Brock Yates’ 1991 book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races.
The director is now looking for an actress to play opposite Bale and the film’s rights will be available at various film markets – though we’d imagine it’ll be snapped up pretty quickly given this combo.
Bale will be seen in Terrence Malick’s Knight Of Cups, which hits the US on March 4 next year and might actually arrive here earlier, with the IMDB listing a January 1 release that has yet to be confirmed. There’s also Malick’s untitled other new film, Adam McKay’s financial drama** The Big Short **and a role in Andy Serkis’ Jungle Book: Origins, which will be out in 2017.