A few years ago I posted an entry about how excited I was at the news that Michael Mann was adapting Go Like Hell, a non-fiction book by A.J. Baime chronicling the story of how the Ford Motor Company conquered the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race back in the 1960s at the expense of its fiercest rival at the time, Ferrari. At the time, no names were attached save for that of Mann, but as a fan of both motorsports and movies I was extremely excited.
Mann has since moved on from that project, but interest in it remains. Hollywood megastar and former part-time race car driver Tom Cruise has set his sights on it, and he's brought his own director with him, namely Joseph Kosinski of Tron: Legacy fame. Cruise is currently attached to play legendary race car driver and car tuner Carroll Shelby. Eyebrows were raised in the film and motorsport fan community when word leaked that another Hollywood heavyweight, Brad Pitt (whose most recent film World War Z showed he still has some box-office clout) had been approached for a yet-undisclosed role. This would mark their first film together since Neil Jordan's 1994 hit Interview with a Vampire, and has come a surprise to some, especially considering Pitt's rather public comments, not only on how difficult Cruise was to work with on the set of Vampire, but his subsequent and more recent description of Cruise as "Dr. Strange." Still, stranger things have happened, people can forgive and forget and the lure of blockbuster dollars can work wonders, I suppose.
The film, assuming it gets made, will arguably put these two actors' drawing power to the test. Sure, Cruise had a big hit a couple of years back with the latest Mission: Impossible sequel and Pitt only just had the aforementioned WWZ , but movies about non-NASCAR car racing have always been a difficult sell. Just ask the producers of Ron Howard's Rush, which has only earned $90 million from all around the world despite glowing reviews, a starring role for Thor star Chris Hemsworth, and the fact that Formula 1 is supposedly the most-watched sporting event on the planet. Nothing much was expected of the film in the U.S., but the global receipts were truly disappointing, even if the film managed to make back its relatively small budget.
The good news for Go Like Hell (or whatever the adaptation is eventually called), at least as far as its box-office prospects in the U.S. are concerned, is that the true story of Ford's Le Mans glory is concerned, there is a conspicuously American element to it, unlike Rush, which, with its English and Austrian protagonists, was Euro-centric. After all, Ford is America's first automaker and Henry Ford II was basically the prime-mover behind the successful Le Mans campaign, even though he had collaborators from "across the pond" and other parts of the world. Also, the late Carroll Shelby, who helped design and build the legendary, world-beating Ford GT40, is an American icon, and a film featuring him as a central character will almost certainly get substantial red-state bucks come opening day. The premiere will probably be full of Shelby Mustangs of varying eras. Of course, this could be a two-edged sword, depending on how many people are open to Cruise as Shelby.
While I would have preferred a less "Hollywood" version of such an important moment in motorsport, I am still eagerly anticipating this film, assuming it gets made. Cruise and Pitt, beneath the sheen of all that celebrity, are accomplished and committed filmmakers in their own right, and are both risk-takers. My respect for Cruise recently went up several notches when he donned a fat suit to play a movie producer in Tropic Thunder, but even before then he was no stranger to unglamorous roles like that of paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. For his part, apart from high-profile roles in a number of well-received movies like Se7en and Fight Club, Pitt has served as a producer for a seminal films like The Departed and, more recently, 12 Years a Slave. The fact that Cruise happens to be an honest-to-goodness gearhead augurs well for the film's authenticity, at least in terms of its feel if not the actual narrative; although it's a given that dramatic license will be taken with the story, someone enamored with racing is more likely than not to go the extra mile (pun intended) to really put audiences in that era.
Still, it's an uphill climb, even for the likes of Cruise and Pitt, but I, for one, hope they're up to it, because there are simply too few really good movies about motorsport.
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