Latest news with #F1TheMovie
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘F1: The Movie' — Instant Oscar predictions
With strong reviews and a massive marketing push from Apple, F1: The Movie seems to be speeding toward the finish line for first place at the weekend box office. But could the summer tentpole make a showing at the end of the year in the Oscar race? The movie's pedigree certainly suggests it could follow the route of another high-velocity hit of recent years. With Joseph Kosinski in the director's chair and Jerry Bruckheimer producing, Top Gun: Maverick is an easy parallel to draw for how the Brad Pitt-led vehicle could make an impact in awards season. More from Gold Derby 'The Bear,' 'My Mom Jayne,' Lorde's 'Virgin,' and the best to stream this weekend: June 27, 2025 Overexposing Pedro Pascal, revisiting that 'Sinners' spit scene, Springsteen 'Tracks II' ranked, and what to read this weekend: June 27, 2025 But in which categories could it be competitive? The lightning in a bottle magic of Maverick seems to be missing from the reactions to F1 thus far, so Screenplay and Picture seem like a stretch at the moment. But with some familiar names below the line, several craft categories could definitely be within reach. A three-time nominee, editor Stephen Mirrione previously won in the category for cutting Steven Soderbergh's multi-thread drug epic, Traffic, back in 2001. Since then, he's been the go-to editor for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, earning nominations for both Babel and The Revenant — in addition to working on the director's Best Picture-winning Birdman. Top Gun: Maverick's cinematopher, Claudio Miranda, made the leap over to F1 with Kosinksi. Miranda wasn't nominated for the high-flying shots of Tom Cruise and company, but he is a previous winner, for his work on Ang Lee's The Life of Pi. He was also nominated for Best Cinematography with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. F1's score is by Hans Zimmer. Heard of him? The 12-time nominee and two-time winner is another carry-over from Top Gun: Maverick. He most recently won in 2022, when his now-iconic howls from the Dune: Part 1 soundtrack took home Best Score. His first win came all the way back in 1995 for The Lion King. A previous nominee on behalf of Top Gun: Maverick, production visual effects supervisor Ryan Tudhope is among the VFX team on F1. A nomination in this category will likely come down to competition, as the end of the year will bring near-guaranteed heavy-hitters like Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash. Maverick's one Oscar win from its six nominations came in the Best Sound category. That film's supervising sound editor and sound editor, Al Nelson, is the only member of that team to make the leap to F1. Still, with all of those revving engines, its difficult to imagine a tentpole release with more sound this year. Best of Gold Derby Everything to know about 'The Batman 2': Returning cast, script finalized Tom Cruise movies: 17 greatest films ranked worst to best 'It was wonderful to be on that ride': Christian Slater talks his beloved roles, from cult classics ('Heathers,' 'True Romance') to TV hits ('Mr. Robot,' 'Dexter: Original Sin') Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Brad Pitt's F1 racing movie debuts. Can it help bring the sport to new heights?
It's a huge week for Formula One, but the action isn't on the racetrack. 'F1 The Movie' premiered in the US this Friday, June 27. The blockbuster with a rumored $200 million production budget backed by Apple (AAPL) and distributed by Warner Bros. (WBD) aims for glory in the highly competitive summer release calendar. The movie is tracking well for a strong opening box office, per Hollywood insiders. The film is based on a tried-but-true formula (forgive the pun). Fictional aging racer Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is brought on to an upstart team to help guide its rookie driver, but along the way he comes face to face with his own personal demons, and of course redemption. But that's the boring part. What has everyone, or at least car buffs, salivating is the access the filmmakers had to the sport: filming at real races using real F1 cars and technology, embedding themselves in the sport, and capturing footage that brings the viewer right into the driver's seat. A movie like this, especially with a big focus on the US audience, would have been a surprise only a few years ago. Part of this is because F1 — considered the most technically advanced, and glamorous, racing league — is finally growing in the US. In 2024, the sport reached about 30 million viewers across ESPN (DIS) platforms, with an average of 1.1 million viewers per race during the season. That's pretty good for a sport that used to count viewers in the thousands less than ten years ago. US fans, who discovered the sport and grew with it as shows like Netflix's (NFLX) 'Drive to Survive' brought drivers into viewers' living rooms, have become a coveted group to market. That's both for the sport, which is owned by Liberty Media (FWONK), and the many brands that have now signed on as sponsors. '[The F1] fanbase across the world is over 800 million; fanbase in the US is 50 million. But the really important thing is doubling year on year,' said James Vowles, the head of Williams F1 and a former longtime Mercedes team exec. 'So great trajectory commercially, and if we look at all of the partners and sponsors that we have, a third of them are from the US, which just tells you how important it is.' Moviegoers, from the hardcore F1 fans to those who just want to see Brad Pitt drive a race car, will be most impressed by how close the filmmakers were to the sport in capturing the action. 'It's not a documentary, but it is authentic to us as a sport,' Vowles said. '[Producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer], [director] Joe [Kosinski], and the team were really, really impressive at integrating themselves across [the last two seasons], such that as far as I went, we had an 11th team alongside us. It was really seamless in terms of integration.' The F1 movie team had its own F1 race cars, fictional team personnel, and even pit setups to replicate the 11th team on the real F1 grid. Apple created special cameras that were embedded in the race cars to capture all the action. The realism is an important aspect of the movie, and portraying it effectively is good for the brand, Vowles said. 'I think what we've done really well, and it's a combination of Liberty, combination of Netflix and I think the Formula 1 film as well, is actually portraying how much of a team sport it is, how much we got 1000 people behind the scenes working every hour they can to develop the car, every single race to be different,' Vowles said. Plenty of large US multinational companies have bought into the F1 story via team sponsorships —including Oracle (ORCL), Visa (V), Walmart (WMT), HP (HPQ), and Alphabet's Google (GOOG) among them. Williams counts US brands like Duracell batteries (BRK-B), Michelob Ultra beer (BUD), and crypto exchange Kraken ( among others, as sponsors, and US-based investment firm Dorilton Capital is Williams's majority owner. Now Williams itself would like to see more brands — US or otherwise — join its sponsorship ranks. Title sponsorships, like Williams' Atlassian deal, can for the most successful teams result in $20 million or more in revenue. Williams had a strong 2024, but has had mixed results this year, sitting fifth in the team standings. Poor results mean less shared revenue, which in 2024 was split among the teams from a pool of $1.23 billion, with the higher-performing teams getting more money. Poor results also mean less money from sponsors. There's also the concern that the sport of F1 has been stretched too far in the US, with newer fans harder to come by. ESPN has reportedly opted out of its TV rights deal with F1, with Liberty Media seeking a new deal worth upwards of $150 million per season, nearly double the current TV deal. Streamers like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple may step in, betting on future growth. As for Vowles, who just inked a new deal to run the team, he believes Williams is a 'sleeping giant" in F1 despite this year's struggles, citing the team's winning history of nine world championships and seven drivers championships, new investments, and strong drivers like Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon. Whether Williams, now competing in its 48th season, can get back to its winning ways is an open question. The hope is that Brad Pitt's aging racer seeking redemption in "F1 The Movie" can lend a hand. Pras Subramanian is the lead auto reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram.
Japan Today
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
LA home reportedly owned by Brad Pitt ransacked by burglars, police say
Brad Pitt poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film "F1 The Movie" in London on June 23. By ITZEL LUNA Police are investigating a break-in at a home reportedly owned by Brad Pitt, who has been on a globe-spanning promo tour for his new movie, 'F1.' The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed they responded to a break-in Wednesday night at a house on the 2300 block of North Edgemont Street in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Three suspects broke into the residence through the front window, ransacked the home and fled with miscellaneous property, said Officer Drake Madison. Madison said he could not identify who owned or lived in the home, and no information is currently available on what was stolen. Pitt reportedly bought the home for $5.5 million in April 2023, according to Traded, a commercial real estate website. A Pitt representative declined comment. Pitt has been out of the country on a promotional tour for the 'F1' movie. He attended the international premiere in London on Monday. The movie opened in U.S. theaters Friday. The burglary was first reported Thursday by NBC News. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Miami Herald
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Pitt stop: How Las Vegas helped bring ‘F1 The Movie' to life
LAS VEGAS - We've all had that week at work. There was a project due or an uptick in responsibilities. Maybe a couple of key people were out. You were pulled in a thousand directions and weren't sure how you'd get everything done. Focus on it. Really try to put yourself back inside those moments. Then throw Brad Pitt into the mix, along with everything that comes with a star of his magnitude, including a hundred-person film crew, and you'll have a sense of what it was like in November when F1 and "F1 The Movie" descended upon the Las Vegas Grand Prix. A whole new look at racing Few summer blockbusters have had the access that "F1" enjoyed. Heck, some documentaries don't get that close to their subjects. Journeyman driver Sonny Hayes (Pitt) lives in a van, wears mismatched socks and hasn't been on a Formula One track since crashing out of the circuit three decades ago. But when his old friend Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is at risk of losing his struggling race team, Sonny signs on to drive for him and mentor promising rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). The movie follows the traveling circus that is Formula One to the last nine races of the 2024 season, starting with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The cast and crew were embedded throughout. "They were so giving and opened up all their doors," Pitt says of F1 in the film's production notes. "We were able to shoot on race weekends, shoot on podiums, shoot during the national anthem. We had our own garage. We even shot on our pit wall while the races were going on." After months of training, Pitt and Idris got behind the wheels of Formula Two cars designed by Mercedes-AMG that were similar to, yet roughly $14 million cheaper than, their Formula One counterparts. By utilizing the "white space" in each weekend's schedule - 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there - the actors drove on the actual tracks with fans in the stands. The Las Vegas Grand Prix made international headlines when Pitt's stunt double was filmed collapsing on the track in footage that didn't make the movie's final cut. What viewers will see is some of the most breathtaking racing footage ever captured, thanks to new camera technology that could be mounted on 15 positions on each car. The result is the kind of immersive, you-are-there view of racing that you'd expect to see somewhere like Sphere. 'Incredible placement' When Brian Gullbrants saw Wynn Las Vegas on the screen, he put his fists in the air and cheered. This was during the "F1" world premiere with the movie's stars, three-quarters of the current Formula One grid and several thousand other bigwigs at New York's Radio City Music Hall. "My wife looked at me and said, 'Putyourhandsdown,'" recalls Gullbrants, COO North America, Wynn Resorts. "I was so excited." Shortly after arriving in Las Vegas, Pitt's Sonny enters his Encore suite, walks over to the window and stares out at the neighboring Wynn. The scene, which Gullbrants calls "incredible placement in an unbelievable movie," was filmed the Tuesday before the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Director Joseph Kosinski ("Top Gun: Maverick") shot it on the floor where Pitt, the film's other top stars and producers stayed. "With the level of customers that we had and the celebrities that were here and the drivers that were here," Gullbrants says, "we already had all the security details in place. … It went very smoothly. You would never know we were shooting a major motion picture in our hotel while we had all of these people here." He's hopeful "F1 The Movie" will increase interest in the sport in those pockets of the world that haven't yet embraced it and that it ultimately will lead to still more fans coming to the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Gullbrants already had one wish fulfilled when he spotted the Wynn logo in Pitt's hands. Sonny, a somewhat reformed gambler, is rarely without a deck of cards, whether he's flinging them one by one across the room or blindly pulling one to stick in his pocket before a race. He and Idris' Joshua get to know each other during a poker game inside a supper club as they vie for control of the race team. (The club is implied to be Wynn's Delilah, but those scenes were filmed on a soundstage in London.) During the premiere, Gullbrants whispered to his wife how thrilled he was to see Pitt using the Wynn-branded cards he'd given the production, even though he was convinced no one else would notice. "After the movie," Gullbrants says, "five different people at the screening came up and said, 'Wow, it was really great that you got your cards in there, too.' " 'The glamour of Las Vegas' Throughout most of "F1 The Movie," Sonny is presented as something of a cowboy, a lone wolf in a sport that requires teamwork. By the time the action moves to Las Vegas, he's ready to let down his guard, reveal some things about his past and prove he's more than just a beautiful agent of chaos. Such an important scene demands an exceptional location, which is where The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas came in. "They were looking for a room that really captured the glamour of Las Vegas," says Allyson Wadman, associate director of public relations for MGM Resorts International. "Something that was edgy, luxurious and kind of in the middle of all the energy on the Las Vegas Strip." The production found that in a Cosmopolitan suite that has a wraparound balcony overlooking the Fountains of Bellagio and a large section of the Las Vegas Grand Prix course. The thing about such a perfect location, though, is that it's already a hot commodity among high rollers during race week. "We try to be really flexible," Wadman says, "especially when it's a really great opportunity to showcase our property and the city itself." Planning for that shoot began in early 2023, before the strikes by the acting and writing guilds pushed principal photography back a year. When it finally came time to film on that Tuesday night in November, there was more than enough pressure and distraction to go around. "You think about all of the street closures, the grandstands, all of the hundreds of thousands of people," Wadman says. "Operationally, that is already a lot going on for all of the resorts on the Strip." The "F1" team removed light fixtures, rearranged the furniture and applied dark paint over the balcony's white ceiling. "Those small little details of the suite, we were having meetings on meetings," Wadman says. Planning took "countless hours" over the course of several months. 'That world-class scene' Jason Strauss was watching Tiësto perform inside Omnia when the music stopped and the 1,500 or so clubgoers started milling about. Then it happened again. And again. For hours. Three days before the Dutch DJ would play there again while the Las Vegas Grand Prix roared by, the nightclub at Caesars Palace served as a movie set filled with extras. (The club was used again by Rosé for that "Messy" video.) It wasn't the typical Omnia experience, even aside from the stops and starts. The production added its own lights to the club's rigging, making the space brighter than ever. Footage shot in the 12 hours starting at 3 p.m. that Wednesday has been used in the movie's trailers and promotional videos. "It didn't really feel that sexy watching it," says Strauss, co-CEO of Tao Group Hospitality, which owns and operates the club. "But then seeing it in the trailer, it looked (expletive) sexy." Tao Group's parent company, Mohari Hospitality, has long-standing ties to Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time Formula One world champion who's one of the movie's key producers. Tiësto was selected after being on both the production's shortlist of DJs and the Tao Group roster. "This is a major thing for our group," Strauss says, "but it's also a (big) thing for Vegas." The only time you really see Sonny and Joshua out on the town, taking in life away from the track, is when they're in Las Vegas. After that poker game, set the night before the race, Joshua heads to Omnia to unwind. "For them to say, when it comes to nightlife, Vegas has to embody that world-class scene, and of all the nightclubs in Vegas, they chose Omnia," Strauss says, calling it "just a great accolade." Tao Group is developing Omnia outposts around the world, and Strauss sees being tied so closely to Formula One as a huge stamp of approval. Especially when "F1 The Movie" shows Joshua, a hot young driver who can do anything he wants, hanging out there. "Guess what? That's what it is in real life," Strauss says with a confident laugh. "That's why it's going to resonate. It's very authentic." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Mercedes Wants To Ditch George Russell For Max Verstappen Ahead Of 2026 F1 Rules Change
George Russell has not yet signed a new contract with his Mercedes-AMG F1 team for the 2026 season. It seems team boss and "F1 The Movie" producer Toto Wolff is trying to keep his team's options open for next season, actively attempting to lure the four-time World Drivers' Champion Max Verstappen away from his recalcitrant Red Bull Racing team. "As Mercedes, they want to be back on top, and if you're going to be back on top you need to make sure you've got the best drivers, the best engineers, the best pitcrew, and that's what Mercedes are chasing. So, it's only normal that conversations with the likes of Verstappen are ongoing," Russell admitted to ahead of this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix. Russell, having won four Grands Prix for the three-pointed star since he joined the team in 2022, including the most recent outing at the Canadian Grand Prix, is confident his performance will earn him a new contract in short order. With an entirely new set of regulations on the horizon, Mercedes will want to hit the ground running in 2026 with a solid lineup of adaptable drivers. Because of that, I think the team would be foolish to drop George for Verstappen. When everything is perfect for Max and he has the exact right car, the Red Bull ace is nearly unstoppable. Face him with even the lightest of adverse conditions, and he implodes into an atomic bomb of insecurity and dangerous on-track antics. If Mercedes build a mildly competitive car, as they have this season, George will unequivocally be the right answer, and I'm confident he's got enough talent to take a championship if the car is as well-built as the 2025 McLarens or 2023 Red Bull have been. Max might be able to make a perfect car even more perfect, but in a merely passable car he'll be a liability for the team, as he has been in 2025. Read more: Every 2025 Formula 1 Livery, Ranked From Worst To Best Conveniently the Mercedes AMG F1 team has two seats, so George doesn't necessarily have to be the one to go in order to make room for Mr. Verstappen. In that same interview, propped up by his recent win, Russell commented "I feel with the performance I'm showing at the moment I've got zero reasons to be worried." That leaves Mercedes-AMG junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli on the chopping block. The 18-year-old recent grad joined Mercedes for the 2025 season on a one-year contract to replace Sir Lewis Hamilton, who departed for Ferrari after delivering 8 World Constructor Championships for the Merc squad. Antonelli is holding his own, but hardly filling those big shoes, scoring fewer than half as many points as Russell across the season. If I were Toto Wolff, and thank goodness I'm not, I certainly would not ditch either of these drivers to woo Max Verstappen. In spite of Max's generational talent, he's a potential liability to the team if he replaces Russell, and the team would practically implode if he replaced Antonelli. A George Russell and Max Verstappen duo at Mercedes would be diabolical and the infighting would break even the most stoic team principal. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
