New Delhi, June 18: Filmmaker Joseph Kosinski says he grew up on adventure movies like “Top Gun” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in the ’80s and he tries to recreate that big theatrical experience through his cinema be it Tom Cruise-led “Top Gun: Maverick” or his upcoming Brad Pitt-starrer “F1”.
Before directing Cruise in “Maverick”, the director worked with the actor on “Oblivion”, a sci-fi story that he first wrote as a graphic novel. Kosinski has also directed “Tron: Legacy” and “Only the Brave”.
Set in the world of Formula One racing, “F1”, like Kosinski’s earlier work, is shot on a massive scale, features fast-paced action and A-list stars like Pitt and Javier Bardem.
“I love making films for the big screen. I think now it’s more important than ever that we get people out of their homes to see this. So you have to give them a reason to go to the theatre, and that’s what I’m hoping to do with ‘F1’,” the filmmaker told PTI in a virtual interview.
“Those are the kind of movies I grew up going to see in the theatre when I was a kid in the ’80s and ’90s. I remember seeing ‘Top Gun’, ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, big movies that take you into this world for two hours, send you on an adventure and then spit you out in the end and you can’t wait to take the ride again,” he added.
Kosinski remembers seeing a documentary on Formula One racer Ayrton Senna years ago and then watching Netflix’s “Drive to Survive”. He realised that it would be great to set a “big screen experience” within this world.
“F1” revolves around a once-promising racer Sonny Hayes (Pitt), whose former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) ropes in Pitt as a last-ditch effort to reverse the ailing fortunes of his F1 team. The team also has a successful rookie Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris).
“(It’s about) a rookie who has been trying to prove they belong there, but they’re in a slow car, so they can’t and then I came up with this story of a veteran driver who still has something to prove to himself. I thought it would be a great journey to bring these two together.”
Asked how is it to direct big stars like Pitt and Cruise, the filmmaker said both the stars love new challenges.
“I think both Brad and Tom are at the top of their game and incredible professionals. They have great taste in films and stories. They understand how to develop a character. They’re both incredible actors. And Brad was someone I always wanted to work with.
“I thought this would be the perfect role for him. And luckily, he did, too, and it was just an incredible collaboration. I had an incredible time. And yeah, I’m excited for people to see his performance in this film, because I think it’s really special,” he added.
Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton is a producer on the movie. Kosinski said Hamilton was one of the first people he reached out to when he thought about making a movie on Formula One racing.
“I asked him if he would help me make this film as authentic as possible. And he said yes. So he worked very closely with me and Jerry Bruckheimer (producer) and Brad from the beginning to help craft this story and character. We went through every line of the script together, making sure we got every detail right,” he said.
Kosinski’s experience of working on “Top Gun: Maverick” came in handy while shooting for this movie and one of them was to invent a brand new camera system.
“The tools didn’t exist to make this movie… We created a new prototype camera that’s very small but delivers IMAX quality imagery. Sony built 25 prototypes for us, and we worked with the Mercedes F1 team to create a race car that had camera mounts built into it. So we had 15 or 16 different mount points on this race car,” he said.
Both Pitt and Idris were taught how to drive race cars for real.
“When you see them driving in this movie, they are actually driving a race car on a Formula One track during race weekend. So the crowd in the stands is real. When you see other drivers getting in their cars around them, that all happened right before a real Formula One race. The idea was to give the viewer the sense of what it’s like to be at one of these events,” he said.
Next for Kosinski is “Top Gun 3”, which is already in development. Bruckheimer is also producing two of his other movies.
“I’ve got three films in development, two with Jerry, including a sequel to Top Gun Maverick. Ehren Kruger is writing the script right now, who wrote ‘F1’ and also worked on ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, so we got an incredible screenwriter working on it. Any opportunity to work with Jerry, I will take it.”
Kosinski, who has a background in mechanical engineering and architecture, said he has always loved storytelling and his passion for movies eventually led him to pursue a career in filmmaking.
“I was a voracious kind of reader as a child. And when I was in architecture school here in New York City (at Columbia University), I started making short films on the computer and with digital cameras.
“One of those shorts got into a small film festival here in the city, and it was spotted by an advertising executive who hired me to do a commercial for Nike. And that was in 2004 and that was kind of my start as a commercial director, which then led to features when I moved to Los Angeles,” he added.
“F1”, an Apple Original Film, will be distributed in theatres and IMAX worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is produced by Bruckheimer, Plan B Entertainment, and Lewis Hamilton’s Dawn Apollo Films.
It will be released in India on June 27 in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. (PTI)
