Ferrari was selected to compete for the
Golden Lion at the
80th Venice International Film Festival, premiering on August 31, 2023. The film was originally set to premiere on the streaming service
Showtime,[8] but it was eventually released in the United States theatrically on December 25, 2023, by
Neon. Although the film received generally positive reviews from critics and was named one of the top 10 films of 2023 by the
National Board of Review,[9] it was a
box-office bomb,[10] grossing only $42 million against a $95 million budget.
Plot
In the summer of 1957, Italian entrepreneur
Enzo Ferrari prepares his
racing team for the
Mille Miglia, an open road, endurance-based race lasting one thousand miles. Grappling with both domestic and professional crises, Ferrari and his estranged wife, Laura, grieve for their only son,
Dino, who died a year prior. While he has kept Laura from learning of his infidelities, Ferrari’s mistress, Lina Lardi, pressures him to grant their illegitimate son,
Piero, the Ferrari name as his confirmation nears.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the groundbreaking development of the team's
Formula One car, Ferrari’s manufacturing company is suffering from severe financial hemorrhaging. Faced with no other choice, Ferrari must merge with a sister company to continue doing business. However, Laura owns half of Ferrari's shares, and in order to move forward on deals, Enzo must convince Laura to sign the entirety of the company over to him. A resentful Laura demands a check for $500,000, which will bankrupt the company if she cashes it. Laura confirms her suspicions that Enzo has been having an affair after finding where Lina and Piero live in the countryside outside
Modena. Enzo agrees to write the check and trust her to wait.
As the Mille Miglia commences in
Brescia, Ferrari encourages his drivers to remain ahead of the competition. During a pit-stop in
Rome, Enzo’s newest addition to the team,
Alfonso de Portago, refuses to change tires in order to stay in the lead; he suffers a blowout and loses control of the vehicle, which veers off the road, killing de Portago, his navigator, and nine onlookers in the resulting crash, including children. Another of Ferrari's drivers, the veteran
Taruffi, completes the round trip to Brescia and wins the race. Ferrari is blamed by the media for de Portago's lethal accident, and Laura cashes her check to provide bribe money for journalists. She signs over the full rights to the company, requesting that in return, Enzo refrain from giving Piero the Ferrari name until after her death. Enzo agrees, and later brings Piero to his half-brother's grave.
Michael Mann first began exploring making the film around 2000, having discussed the project with
Sydney Pollack. Mann had been developing the script with writer
Troy Kennedy Martin, who died in 2009.[14][a] Mann was offered $40 million to make the film, but he refused because he thought that the budget was not enough.[16]
In August 2015,
Christian Bale entered negotiations to star as Ferrari. Filming was planned to begin in summer 2016 in Italy. In October 2015,
Paramount Pictures bought the worldwide distribution rights for the film.[17][18] Bale exited the film in January 2016 over concerns of meeting the weight requirements for the role before the start of production.[19] The project stalled until April 2017, when
Hugh Jackman entered negotiations to portray Ferrari, and
Noomi Rapace as his wife with Paramount no longer involved.[20] The project would again go dormant until June 2020. Mann and Jackman were still attached but Rapace was no longer involved, with
STX Entertainment handling international distribution.[21]
STX Entertainment agreed to finance 70% of the budget and also acquire the North American distribution rights.[22][8] The rest of the financing came from the Italian tax credit and private investors.[24] In July,
Gabriel Leone,
Sarah Gadon,
Jack O'Connell and
Patrick Dempsey were added to the cast.[25][26] Pre-production began in April 2022, with filming originally set to commence in July in
Modena.[27][28][25][29][30][31]
Ferrari had its world premiere at the
80th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2023.[38] Initially set for a U.S. theatrical release, the film's main financier
STX Entertainment planned to premiere Ferrari on
Showtime and
Paramount+ in the United States instead of theatrically releasing it through their deal with
Lionsgate,[8] but eventually decided to license the United States distribution rights to another theatrical distributor.
Neon paid $15–17 million for the United States distribution rights in a bidding war that also included
A24, an unspecified streaming service and an unspecified film studio later scheduling for the film for a wide theatrical release in the United States on December 25, 2023.[8][39] Neon also spent around $7 million to market the film in the United States.[39]
Sky Cinema and
Black Bear Pictures released the film in the United Kingdom theatrically on December 26, 2023.[4][40] STX retained other international rights.[41]
Home media
Ferrari was released on digital platforms in the United States on January 23, 2024, and on Blu-ray and DVD on March 12, 2024.[42] The film will have its release in France through
Amazon Prime Video.[43]
Reception
Box office
As of March 7, 2024[update], Ferrari has grossed $18.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $24.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $43.5 million.[6][7]
In the United States and Canada, Ferrari was released alongside The Boys in the Boat and The Color Purple, and was projected to gross around $1 million from 2,330 theaters on its first day.[44] It ended up slightly exceeding expectations, grossing $2.9 million and finishing in sixth.[8] The following weekend the film made $4.1 million, finishing ninth at the box office and totaling $10.9 million over its first week of release.[45] In the film's second weekend it made $2.5 million, finishing ninth.[46]
Critical response
On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 245 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Sleek and well-acted, Ferrari overcomes its occasionally underpowered narrative to deliver a rousing and admirably complex biopic."[47]Metacritic, which uses a
weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[48] Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while
PostTrak reported 74% filmgoers gave it a positive score.[8]
Marlow Stern of Rolling Stone praised Penélope Cruz's performance, writing: "There is an unstoppable force at the center of Michael Mann’s Ferrari. It is fast, fierce, and wildly unpredictable. One moment it has you in the throes of ecstasy; the next, fearing for your life. And when you see it coming around the bend, it's curtains. Don't even bother putting up a fight. You'll lose. I'm talking, of course, about Penélope Cruz."[49]
Damon Wise of Deadline Hollywood was more critical of Adam Driver's performance, stating: "Given what's at stake [in the film], a strangely unemotional lead performance from Adam Driver makes it hard to warm to this odd and deeply self-absorbed character. Add in the glacial pace of its narrative, and a film expected to take an early awards-season lead will struggle to hold that pole position."[50]
Italian actor
Pierfrancesco Favino criticized the film for casting American actors to portray Italian characters, instead of Italian actors.[51] The Italian newspaper La Stampa found that it was a beautiful film but regretted that it only covered a limited part of Ferrari's life,[52] while
Piero Ferrari noted various elements in the film that did not, according to him, reflect accurately the facts.[53]
Among mixed reviews, Kevin Nguyen of
The Verge, wrote that he wanted "to credit Ferrari for being a weirder movie than you might expect for a biopic about a guy who builds iconic sports cars. But every swerve feels imprecise, and each detour just takes the film further in an unclear direction."[54]
Tony Lamberti, Bernard Weiser, David Wentz, Brent Findley, Steven Ticknor, Benjamin Cook, Beso Kacharava, Biko Gogaladze, Alexander Sanikidze, Rati Chkhetiani
^A journalist interviewing Kennedy Martin in his office in 1997 noted, "Behind his desk, eight red foolscap document boxes hold different versions of a screenplay for a film about the legendary Italian car-maker Enzo Ferrari, to be made by Michael Mann, director of Heat. It is currently waiting while Disney, which will produce, tries to tempt a De Niro or a Pacino to take on the title role. It may be a long wait."[15]