I’m not an F1 fan or a racing fan. Heck, I’m not a car guy of any kind. But as soon as I heard that Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski was directing a movie about the popular racing league I was intrigued to see what he could do on the racetrack after crafting one of the best movie going experiences of the last few years with the aerial scenes in Top Gun: Maverick.
We got our best look yet at the 2025 new movie and expected summer blockbuster with the F1 trailer that premiered on Thursday, March 13. It’s a good trailer to be sure, but it didn’t take me long to wonder something — is Kosinski just following the same playbook he had with Top Gun: Maverick for F1?
In the trailer we learn Brad Pitt is playing Sonny Hayes, a once promising F1 driver that has become known as “the greatest that never was” after his F1 career ended prematurely. Now 30 years later he is given another chance on the racing circuit to help lead a team featuring young, talented, hot-shot driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), who by the looks of things he’ll have a contentious relationship with.
Just as a reminder, in Top Gun: Maverick, after Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s military career doesn’t pan out as expected he gets another chance to lead a team of young, talented, hot-shot pilots on an important mission, with one of the pilots being Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of his old co-pilot and with whom Maverick has a contentious relationship.
And just like the big deal that Kosinski shot the Top Gun: Maverick aerial sequences with real pilots to get incredible footage, F1 is touting that race footage was shot during actual Grand Prix weekends, hoping to wow audiences by putting them as close into the driver’s seat as they can.
Considering Top Gun: Maverick made nearly $1.5 billion at the global box office and was nominated for six Oscars, can we really blame Kosinski and those behind F1 for trying to replicate that formula a bit? It’s not like we haven’t seen others do the same thing (i.e. Marvel).
Top Gun: Maverick was to me one of the best movies of 2022, so I’m not mad that Kosinski wants to try and recapture lightning in a bottle and transport it into F1. I have enough hope that they didn’t just copy and paste the Top Gun: Maverick script, change names and locations and say it was good to go. Of course I’ll reserve final judgment until I see the movie — if someone sings “Great Balls of Fire” on the piano that may be a step too far for me.
Ultimately, if Kosinski makes another exhilarating, pulse-pounding, one-of-a-kind movie going experience with a solid story and characters like he did before, who wouldn’t sign up for that?
Watch the official F1 trailer for yourself right here:
F1 premieres exclusively in movie theaters (with IMAX screenings) on June 27.
