After their first project together grossed a modest $286 million earlier this year, director Joseph Kosinski is going to re-team with his Oblivion star, Tom Cruise, to tell the story of when Ford automotive decided to challenge European car racing. This will be the second time that Cruise will “feel the need for speed,” (third, counting the movie Top Gun, when his character Maverick actually uttered the phrase). Tom Cruise’s first foray into cinematic car racing was in 1990 in his role as a Nascar driver who didn’t play well with others in the film Days of Thunder.
Go Like Hell will continue the wave of high-profile racing films brought upon in the recent years with the award-winning documentary Senna and the recent release of Ron Howard’s critically-acclaimed Rush. Tom Cruise will play Carroll Shelby and will center around the development of the Ford GT40, Ford’s attempt to create a car that could compete in the Ferrari dominated 24 hour Le Mans race. The project is going to be based on A.J. Blaine’s book Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and their Battle For Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Working with Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca, Shelby would go on to design the Ford to challenge Ferrari, which would dominate the Le Mans 24 race four years in a row.
This will be Joseph Kosinski’s third or fourth film (depending on the status of the Tron: Legacy sequel) after debuting as a feature-length filmmaker with Tron: Legacy. It will be interesting to see Kosinski’s work when he steers away from his two sci-fi debuts (Tron: Legacy and Oblivion).
The next time Tom Cruise will be seen on the big screen will be June 6th in Edge of Tomorrow. In May he will start production on the next film in the Mission: Impossible franchise.