What’s the plural of ‘Ferrari’? That’s the obvious question with news that Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is making a new miniseries about sports car mogul Enzo series for Apple TV+ – a small-screen rival for Michael Mann’s long-gestating movie biopic of the racing car pioneer.
And to complicate – or simplify? – things, both the series and movie are going by the name Ferrari.
The Knight miniseries, which will focus on a five-year period of racing mogul Ferrari’s seriously eventful life, is currently in pre-production in Rome.
The official synopsis reads: ‘Five years. Five drivers. Five deaths. One trial. In the name of passion, in the pursuit of pure speed. At the centre of it all a titanic man, complex and multifaceted, who dedicated his genius to the mission of building the fastest car in history.'
It could be a tight race to the finish line, as Heat director Mann is also filming a Ferrari in Italy this month – albeit a more traditional-sounding life-spanning biopic of Enzo Ferrari.
Mann’s movie boasts an all-star cast, including Adam Driver as Enzo, Penélope Cruz as Ferrari’s wife Laura and Shailene Woodley as his mistress Lina Lardi.
And the similarities continue, with both productions based on books: the Ferrari series is inspired by Luca Del Monte’s biography Ferrari Rex, and the film uses Brock Yates’s Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine as its source material.
‘Enzo Ferrari’s utterly extraordinary life was defined by his dramatic personal and professional journey, and Ferrari is a celebration of an incredibly complex and fascinating human being,’ says Knight.
The series is being directed by Sicario 2’s Stefano Sollima, who promises to ‘explore the unique qualities, the great genius and the dark obsession that turned this man into a legend’.