Lamborghini founder Ferruccio Lamborghini was known to have lived a very interesting life, and like most famous people with a rich life story to tell, Lamborghini’s life is now being turned into a movie. Entertainment site Variety is reporting that Ambi Media Group, the same company that optioned the movie rights to the “Ferruccio Lamborghini La story official” (the official story) is moving ahead with the movie adaptation of the book written by Tonino Lamborghini, Ferruccio’s own son.
In addition to the film’s development pushing through, Ambi has also reportedly signed Antonio Banderas to play the role of the Lamborghini founder and Alec Baldwin to play the role of none other than Enzo Ferrari. The backbone of the film’s production team has also been put in place. Michael Radford (The Postman and The Merchant of Venice) will take the helm as the movie’s director while Bobby Moresco (Million Dollar Baby, and Crash) will write the adapted script from the Lamborghini biopic. No timetable has been set for the movie’s release, but Ambi Distribution, the company’s sales arm, is expected to offer the project to movie studios at the Cannes Film Festival next month. Interestingly, the Ambi Media Group is also behind the movie Finding Steve McQueen starring Travis Fimmel, Rachel Taylor, Forest Whitaker, and William Fitchner.
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Looks promising, but we’ve been down this road before
I’m not going to pretend to know a whole lot about the movie business, but I do know that a lot of things have to come together to even get a project off the ground. The company behind this project seem to have the right people in place to bring the life of Ferruccio Lamborghini to the big screen, but there are still a lot of items that need to be worked out before we can start getting excited about the movie.
That said, signing Antonio Banderas and Alec Baldwin to play the two lead roles in the movie immediately gives it some star power. Banderas is a good choice to play Lamborghini but I don’t know if I’d cast Baldwin as Enzo Ferrari, even if he’s proven himself to be one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood today. I am more interested to know how Bobby Moresco is going to adapt the movie’s screenplay based on the book written by Tonino Lamborghini. That script and the story behind it will ultimately determine whether this movie succeeds or not. Fortunately, Moresco has impressive credentials of his own so entrusting him to adapt Lamborghini’s book is a good move.
And for what it’s worth, having Tonino Lamborghini himself involved in the project gives it a lot of credibility. Lamborghini himself is confident about the prospect of the movie, saying that the film has the potential to “translate into images and words the great humanity of Ferruccio and transmit to the viewers worldwide my father’s personality: a man full of energy, charisma, and passion.”
It’s too early to say what we can make out of this announcement since the movie itself hasn’t gone into full-fledged production just yet. Besides, there are still no assurances that this movie will get off the ground. History has shown that even the most promising off film projects can go off the rails for one reason or another and this one could be no different. And while we’re at it, it’s going to be very interesting to see how Ferrari reacts to the movie if it does end up portraying its own patriarch, Enzo Ferrari, as the proverbial baddie opposite Ferruccio Lamborghini. Don’t sleep on the Prancing Horse stepping in if it does end up that way.