FALL MOVIE PREVIEW: HOLLYWOOD GOES ALL-IN ON ORIGINAL FILMS
When 20th Century Fox greenlit James Mangold’s “Ford v. Ferrari” — an original movie with a nearly $100 million budget — the director’s agent had some advice.
“Enjoy this,” Mangold recalled him saying. “This will be the last one of these you ever make.”
“Ford v Ferrari,” which viscerally recounts the efforts of an automotive designer (Matt Damon) and a race car driver (Christian Bale) to build a Ford that could beat Ferrari at the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1966, has a lot going for it: big-name movie stars, a director coming off an Oscar-nominated hit (“Logan”) and a marathon, nearly hour-long racing finale.
But it doesn’t have what typically scores such a large budget in today’s Hollywood: franchise-making IP (intellectual property). It might as well be a unicorn.
“With the amount of
