Michael Mann’s ‘Ferrari’ Secures SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement; Will Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz Promote Pic At Venice?

SAG-AFTRA on Thursday named Neon‘s Michael Mann-directed Ferrari as one of its latest recipients of an interim agreement for publicity.

The waiver allows the movie’s cast, which includes Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz, to publicize the feature at its Venice Film Festival world premiere, closing night at the New York Film Festival and other events at which the pic may screen.

Similar to indie studio A24, Neon is a non-AMPTP company and has encountered no hurdles in nabbing SAG-AFTRA interim agreements.

There are several applications of SAG-AFTRA interim agreements for indie features, addressing everything from casting to production and promotion.

Ferrari is not the first major title to benefit in the latter area, joining a list that includes Luc Besson’s DogMan and Lily Gladstone-led The Unknown Country. But it’s certainly the starriest with the option to promote at the moment, boasting an ensemble cast that also includes Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey, Jack O’Connell and Gabriel Leone, among others. It’s still early, however, and it remains to be seen whether stars will come out in support of the pic even with the SAG-AFTRA waiver in hand. As has proven the case on the production side with titles like the MRC pic G20 to star Viola Davis, there’s the possibility talent may opt out of exercising rights granted to them by their guild, simply due to optics.

Slated for release by Neon on Christmas Day, the latest feature from Mann is set in 1957, and follows Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura (Cruz), built from nothing ten years earlier. Their volatile marriage is further fractured with grief for their only son. Ferrari struggles with the acknowledgement of another with Lina Lardi. His drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge. All their fates converge in one race, the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the iconic Mille Miglia. 

Troy Kennedy Martin (The Italian Job) adapted the screenplay from Brock Yates’ biography Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine. In addition to directing, Mann produced via his Moto Pictures banner alongside P.J. van Sandwijk and John Lesher, as well as Marie Savare, John Friedberg, Lars Sylvest, Thorsten Schumacher and Gareth West. STX Entertainment and partners will handle the film’s international rollout.

Applications for interim agreements, allowing either production or publicity to proceed for projects from non-AMPTP-affiliated producers, have been available since the actors strike kicked off on July 14, with the guild subsequently barraged with “hundreds of applications,” per SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. The full list of projects benefiting from them, as of today, can be found above.