Michael Mann, likely hoping to bounce back from Blackhat– the critical and financial flop he released earlier this year-, is preparing his next project. The revered director, responsible for films like Heat, The Insider, and Ali is now preparing to bring Enzo Ferrari’s life story to the big screen. The Italian automotive mogul is responsible for the iconic brand of cars that bare his name: Ferrari.

Mann, as he’s been known to do, has been doing exhaustive research on the man, and has combined two separate scripts that were based off of the book “Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, and The Races” by Brock Yates into one. Those two, now merged scripts were written by Troy Kennedy Martin (The Italian Job) and David Rayfiel (The Firm).

The Rayfiel script was going to be used by Sydney Pollack when this film was first conceived back in 2004, with Mann’s Heat star Al Pacino attached to play Ferrari. But the production would go on to stall out. Pollack later passed away in 2008, and Rayfiel passed on 2011. 

“Mann is very passionate about this project and people are interested,” says Niels Juul, of Cecchi Gori Media- the company that’s developing this new attempt at the film. “We are talking to financiers and have some early commitments,” he says. One potential challenge? There’s another Ferrari pic in the works, starring Heat‘s other star Robert De Niro.

There’s a lot of interesting elements here. Between Mann’s former stars attached at separate times to play Ferrari, Mann’s most recent leading actor Chris Hemsworth (Blackhat) starring in 2013’s Formula One racing flick Rush that heavily featured Ferrari, it just seems like something was always destined to happen here. 

If everything comes together here, the film would reportedly shoot in 2016. 

SOURCE: Variety