Why F1 boss says the way Brad Pitt’s film was shot was ‘quite reckless’

In the summer of 2025, filmmaker Joseph Kosinski and actor Brad Pitt teamed up to make “F1,” a film about the dramatic world of Formula 1 auto racing. In all respects, “F1” seemed like a transparent effort to recreate the success of “Top Gun: Maverick”, which Kosinski directed with Tom Cruise in 2022. Both films were about aging, ultra-beautiful movie stars in their 60s who played characters who represented the pinnacle of male dominance. Cruise and Pitt, in their respective films, could do nothing wrong, and the world’s only mistake was not listening to them more carefully. They both occupied a world of high-tech, high-octane, lightning-fast machines that required a lot of skill to operate.

Both films were huge successes, although “F1” grossed a relatively modest $631 million compared to the $1.5 billion earned by “Maverick.” The latter, being a sequel, could have had nostalgia on its side. Regardless, “F1” was the highest-grossing film of Pitt’s career. Most critics loved it, although at /Film, we were less than impressed.

“F1” was also notoriously expensive, costing over $300 million. It involved a lot of real racing cars on real circuits. Many of the images were captured during real-life Formula 1 events, and most of the driving stunts were captured on actual film. Kosinski recently spoke with Variety and admitted that much of “F1” was quite reckless, with many scenes shot as quickly as possible. It seems that when filming at a real Formula 1 event, you can’t keep the millions of spectators waiting. As such, many scenes had to be shot without the benefit of time, leaving many setups truncated.

It’s hard to imagine a $300 million studio guerrilla style shoot, but it seems like that’s what’s needed when you’re in a real car race with real paying spectators in the stands. We don’t have the luxury of rehearsing for three hours, nor can we stop and do 8 to 12 takes, as many as necessary. “Looking back,” Kosinski said, “I think, ‘My God, that was pretty reckless.'” As the director described it:

“Normally when you shoot a scene you have hours or days to shoot it, but because we wanted to shoot this live at the Grand Prix while the events were happening, we often only had a few minutes. […] So there were times where I said to Brad and Damson, “We’ll be lucky to get three takes of this,” especially that opening scene at Silverstone. We actually shot three scenes back to back in about 15 minutes.”

Damson is of course Damson Idris, Brad Pitt’s co-star in “F1.” Silverstone, for those new to motor racing, is a famous circuit in Northamptonshire, England, in operation since the 1940s and which still hosts high-level Formula 1 races today. As Kosinski noted, the first big race in his film took place at Silverstone. There was at least nine other major leads involved in the filming of “F1”, notably on the circuits of Las Vegas, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. International filming may be one of the main reasons why “F1” is so expensive. This also explains why Kosinski had to shoot so quickly and recklessly. If you’re traveling the world with one of the world’s biggest movie stars, you have to be quick to save time and money.