(Motorsport-Total.com) – It is still unknown what the name of the new Formula 1 film with Brad Pitt will be. But the owners of the racing series have high hopes of bringing Formula 1 to the cinema. Greg Maffei, managing director of Liberty Media, has now explained this in a round of talks with investors.
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Director Joseph Kosinski with Brad Pitt at the Formula 1 race in Austin 2022
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Above all, he sees a need to present Formula 1 in a different medium, said Maffei. The Netflix-Serie “Drive to survive” not enough in the long run.
The docu-soap on Formula 1 is “wonderful,” says Maffei. “But we can’t depend on that for all eternity [die Serie] advertising for us.” It is therefore important to “keep the topic of Formula 1 fresh” in a different way and “to do something different,” said Maffei.
Formula 1 is looking for new advertising environments
“That’s exactly what we’ve done since we got into Formula 1,” Maffei continues. He particularly praises the commitment of series boss Stefano Domenicali, under whose leadership Formula 1 has recently shown an increased presence on platforms such as “Instagram, Tiktok and the like”. “We have presented Formula 1 in a fresh and different way,” says Maffei.
There’s a lot more planned for the film. Formula 1 as a cinema theme is “a bit like Las Vegas” and will give the audience a “completely different” response.
Reach is crucial for Liberty Media, emphasizes Maffei: “As much as we reach a large audience worldwide with ‘Drive to survive’, I keep meeting people who don’t know it. The audience is not that big. Many like it Insiders are interested, but not the general public.”
“But the movie, with Brad Pitt, with Lewis Hamilton as a consultant, with Jerry Bruckheimer, and with the director of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, the technology from that film — that’s going to be amazing.”
Filming on real Formula 1 race weekends
Formula 1 boss Domenicali also describes the Formula 1 film as a “lever” with which the racing series can open up a new audience. It’s “another way to prove that we want to do something differently,” he explains.
“When we started working with Netflix, the Formula 1 community wondered what was going to happen now. They said it wasn’t our issue. But now we understand the power behind it. Added to this was the strong presence on social networks . We have made sure that our drivers and teams are very active in promoting the sport.”
Domenicali has something similar in mind for the upcoming Formula 1 film. Filming is set to begin “soon” at Silverstone, where the producers are staying.
During the course of the season, film cameras will then be present at Formula 1 race weekends and capture original scenes. Or as Domenicali puts it: “The production will be very close to the action. That’s something that we have to control somehow. On the other hand, we also want to show that Formula 1 is always going on.”
