Within less than a year, the sports/action genre will be facing its latest addition in the form of Brad Pitt’s F1 movie — one highly speculated to turn enough tables to rival even other well-established masterpieces. And by “other masterpieces,” we are, indeed, counting in Tom Cruise’s piece of cinematic excellence from 2022, Top Gun: Maverick.
While this Formula One movie has only just released its teaser trailer, it is already showing some advanced features that make it evident that it just might be superior to Cruise’s sequel to 1986’s Top Gun. As producer Jerry Bruckheimer candidly revealed, one of these features includes the exceptional way and tools with which this presumed masterwork has been shot.
Jerry Bruckheimer Shares Insights Into the Making of Brad Pitt’s F1
During the recently held British Grand Prix weekend, the teaser trailer to Brad Pitt‘s much-awaited F1 film finally made its way to the screens, and fans couldn’t be more excited about it all. This teaser inevitably featured some really exhilarating close-cut shots from on-board and off-board the cars, promising a truly epic experience for all those Formula One fans out there.
Then there was producer Jerry Bruckheimer further boosting the buzz surrounding it as he shared insights into the making of the movie. According to the details, the 80-year-old producer proudly spilled during the Post-Race Show, taming this piece with exclusive cutting-edge technology was nothing short of a worthwhile experience either.
Talking to F1 TV about it, Bruckheimer revealed:
We have 14 cameras we can put on the car. The cameras are smaller than the cameras we used in Top Gun. They also are mobile, they can move and turn which we’ve never had before, so technology’s advanced so much, and they’re IMAX quality which is even better.
That being said, the producer’s confession itself proves that the mobile camerawork done in this film and the IMAX camera quality and technology equipped for the same has been incredibly heavily advanced as compared to the one used in Tom Cruise‘s Maverick from 2022, which is yet another notable title Bruckheimer proudly guided from the producer’s chair.
But while this feature does make the race-track movie seemingly stand superior to the 2022 blockbuster, Maverick won’t be going down without a fight. This is because of all the extraordinary feats the cinematographers achieved while shooting the aviation movie, which actually included mounting cinema-quality cameras inside the fighter jet.
Top Gun: Maverick Achieved a Feat of Filmmaking Engineering Itself
As fans who have seen the movie would agree, the Glen Powell-starrer Maverick didn’t hold back on the action sequences at all. If anything, it perfectly delivered all the shots with such sheer excellence that even the stunning aerial footage was enough to make viewers and audiences feel the thrill of being seated in the pilot’s seat.
Yet, as easy as it was to watch and undergo that experience, the behind-the-screens work done was the real deal. As cinematographer Claudio Miranda proudly confessed at the Camerimage Intl. Film Festival held in Torun, Poland, in 2022, they mounted 6 true cinema-quality cameras onto fighter jets just to get the perfect shots immaculately delivered by the film.
However, back then, this wasn’t the easiest of tasks, and getting actual, IMAX-quality cameras to fit into those not-so-big fighter planes even required some help in designing the “original camera” from Miranda, resulting in “this little Rialto thing.” Even when told he “could not get them in,” he wasn’t one to give up and eventually achieved an incredibly commendable feat (via Variety).
Although the film was shot two years ago when technology was considerably less progressed, it still surpassed all those expectations with its unbelievable action sequences. That said, even though there’s better technology now and the $300 million upcoming action/sports piece has it all under control enough to rival the 2022 film, nothing can undermine the sheer brilliance shown in the making of Maverick.
F1 is set to hit the theatres on June 27, 2025. Meanwhile, Top Gun: Maverick can be streamed on Prime Video.
