F1 director has worked with real fighter jets in Top Gun: Maverick, but he still found F1 to be the more logistically challenging film.

After working with Tom Cruise, director Joseph Kosinski is all set to work with another A-lister in Hollywood. Kosinski will be helming a Formula One racing film, titled F1, starring Brad Pitt. The new film is being produced under Apple Studios and has already proven more challenging to the director than Top Gun: Maverick.

Brad Pitt in a still from Joseph Kosinski’s F1 | Warner Bros. Pictures

Kosinski is reuniting with Top Gun: Maverick producer Jerry Bruckheimer and screenwriter Ehren Kruger in F1. Interestingly, racing driver Lewis Hamilton also serves as a producer on the film.

Joseph Kosinski Found One Aspect of Brad Pitt’s F1 Extremely Challenging

Brad Pitt in a still from F1 | Warner Bros. Pictures

The development of Joseph Kosinski‘s F1 was first reported in December 2021, with Brad Pitt announced as the lead actor. The story follows a former Formula One driver Sonny Hayes, played by Pitt, who’s brought back to mentor rookie driver Joshua Pearce, played by Damson Idris.

In a recent interview with Deadline, Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer opened up about the challenging shoot of the film. When asked about the huge logistical undertakings of Formula One races, Kosinski shared that it was unlike anything he had ever done before.

While Pitt and Idris were actually driving the cars, the actors had to do it in front of a live audience of thousands of F1 fans. They also had to drive it at the speeds that actual F1 drivers were going. Above all, Kosinski and the camera team had to figure out a way to capture the scenes on track.

Kosinski shared that he had to film the movie in very tight windows since they were filming on actual Grand Prix tracks. They had to fit their schedules between the practice and qualifying sessions on these tracks. Kosinski shared with Deadline:

The logistics of it are unlike anything I’ve done before. We’re shooting at the actual Grands Prix, there are certain aspects of this film where we’re working in very, very tight windows, shooting on the track, between practice and qualifying sessions, in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

Kosinski’s film shoot is currently progressing at the iconic racetrack in Silverstone ahead of the British Grand Prix in the United Kingdom. The film is pretty costly, with several outlets reporting a budget somewhere around $300 million.

However, Bruckheimer disputed this number, sharing that it was “tens of millions of dollars out of whack in the wrong direction”. He shared that the speculations didn’t consider the massive tax rebates on multiple locations.

Joseph Kosinski Found The Fighter Jet Scenes In Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick Less Challenging Than F1

Tom Cruise in Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick | Paramount Pictures

Joseph Kosinski took up the opportunity to work with Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick after working with him on Oblivion. He was brought into the director’s role in 2017 after Tony Scott, who directed the first movie and planned to helm the sequel, passed away in 2012. Like F1, he tried to bring authenticity to the scenes by filming real shots in real planes.

Kosinski sent his actors to a three-month training camp where the actors were up in planes as passengers. He wanted to capture the realistic reactions of the actors while filming the fighter jet scenes. Kosinski shared (via IGN):

You can’t fake the g-forces. You can’t fake the vibration. You can’t fake what it looks like to be in one of these fighter jets. So we wanted to capture every bit of that and shooting it for real allowed us to do that.

From what Kosinski shared with Deadline about F1, filming actors in multi-million dollar planes in Top Gun 2 seemed like an easy task. Kosinski’s upcoming film will also feature real racing drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz Jr., Sergio Pérez, and more.

F1 will be released in theaters in the United States on June 27, 2025. Meanwhile, fans can enjoy the director’s Top Gun: Maverick on Paramount+.