Christian Bale will portray the young Enzo Ferrari in an upcoming Michael Mann film, Deadline reports. The British actor has been tapped to play iI Commendatore, with the biopic scheduled to start shooting next summer. The film would be the first collaboration for Bale and Mann since the 2009 John Dillinger biopic/action film "Public Enemies."
The studio is now in the process of casting female leads, according to Deadline. The film itself will be set in a number of time periods, though the year 1957 has been mentioned as one of the main periods portrayed in the film. The year 1957 in Ferrari's life was marked by a significant racing accident involving a Ferrari race car at the Mille Miglia that led to several deaths, as well as a trial for the patriarch of the racing team.
Yet another Ferrari biopic is being produced right now by Robert De Niro's TriBeCa Film and Gianni Bozzacchi's Triworld production companies, a film which will star De Niro as Ferrari. That's right; there's a second Enzo Ferrari biopic in the works and the De Niro film is being produced by another production company, though a director has not been announced for that effort. The De Niro film was earlier reported to be based on Brock Yates' 1991 book "Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine" and will be produced by Triworld Cinema owner Bozzacchi.
A Ferrari biopic has been on the verge of coming together for years, with Sydney Pollack at one point being tapped to helm the picture. Al Pacino was also attached to an earlier effort to get the film off the ground, though after Pollack's death in 2008 the story was put on the back burner.
In film, the character of Enzo Ferrari last made an appearance in the the 2013 Formula One drama "Rush," where he was portrayed by Augusto Dall'ara and could be seen sitting in a chair on the side of a race track and reading a newspaper.
This article originally appeared on AutoWeek.
