We’re just days away from F1: The Movie roaring into theaters and just a week after the star-studded world premiere in New York, transformed the heart of Times Square into a high-octane pit lane with much of the current F1 grid and a of A-listers in attendance, it was London’s turn to roll out the red carpet for the film’s European premiere.
After all, the U.K. isn’t just home to legendary circuits like Silverstone, but the spiritual birthplace of Formula 1 itself. The first official World Championship Grand Prix was held there in 1950, and today, eight of the ten F1 teams are headquartered in Britain.
Leicester Square in the heart of the British capital, lit up with stars from the worlds of motorsport, music, tech, and Hollywood, including one of the biggest of them all, Tom Cruise. The actor, known for pulling off his own death-defying stunts, made a surprise appearance to lend his support for the film, electrifying an already charged British crowd.
Cruise posed with longtime collaborator Jerry Bruckheimer, director Joseph Kosinski, Brad Pitt, and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali. (Kosinski and Bruckheimer, notably, also teamed up with Cruise for Top Gun: Maverick.) Pitt and Cruise, for their part, last shared the screen in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles. While we’ve seen Cruise in everything from F14 Tom Cats to fast bikes and cars, he notably piloted a Red Bull racing F1 car at Willow Springs back in 2011.
As for F1: The Movie, it features Brad Pitt as veteran racer Sonny Hayes and Damson Idris as rising rookie Joshua Pearce, competing for the fictional APEX GP team. The film was shot on real Grand Prix weekends at tracks like Spa, Silverstone, and Abu Dhabi, with minimal CGI. Pitt and Idris drove the cars themselves, specially modified Formula 2 chassis wrapped by Mercedes-AMG to resemble F1 cars, often at speeds approaching 180 mph.
Apple Original Films, in partnership with Warner Bros., backed the project, and Apple’s Senior VP of Services, Eddy Cue, revealed that iPhone cameras mounted directly on the cars captured some of the film’s most immersive moments.
The film’s soundtrack is equally star-studded. The likes of Ed Sheeran, Tate McRae, Peggy Gou, Ray, and Hans Zimmer all contributed to the music, all of whom attended the premiere. On the acting front, Kerry Condon and Sarah Niles were praised for portraying women in high-performance technical roles.
Seven-time F1 world champion, Sir Lewis Hamilton, who is also a co-producer of the film, wanted to ensure racing authenticity in the film and revealed in an interview that he’d be on Zoom calls on Mondays, post-race weekend, going over every line of the script in detail. His mission was to make F1: The Movie the most authentic racing film ever made.
We won’t have to wait long to find out. The film opens in theaters internationally on June 25 and in North America on June 27, with an IMAX experience built to match the adrenaline of the sport itself.
Source: Apple, Formula 1, Warner Bros Instagram
