F1 and Top Gun director Joseph Kosinski nearly united Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in a sports movie, but it wasn’t meant to be

Brad Pitt stars in Joseph Kosinski's sports drama film, F1. After its premiere at the Radio City Music Hall, the film was released theatrically on June 27, 2025. As per IMDb, here is the official synopsis:

A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.

The critical response has been positive, and the film holds an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. The film also received the biggest opening for an Apple Original Movie.

Amid all the buzz around F1, news has surfaced that that Pitt, Kosinski, and Tom Cruise nearly united for a sports film that never got made.

Brad Pitt nearly collaborated with Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinski

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Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise came very close to collaborating with each other in a project by Joseph Kosinski. The film was none other than Ford v Ferrari. While Cruise was supposed to play Carroll Shelby, Pitt was offered the role of Ken Miles. These roles eventually went to Matt Damon and Christian Bale, respectively. Kosinski was attached to the project as a director in 2013. However, his version of the film did not materialize.

At the 2020 Comic-Con, Kosinski revealed that Pitt and Cruise even sat down for a script reading. The film, however, did not work out because of budget issues. The filmmaker said,

"I got to the point where I had Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt at a table read, reading the script together. But we couldn’t get the budget to the number it had to be at, and it was the right number. So that was the one for me that got away."

He added,

"I always wanted to make a racing film."

Ford v Ferrari was released in 2019 and ended up earning $225.5 million at the box office. Kosinski finally got to make a racing film with Brad Pitt in the form of F1. However, in their long career, Pitt and Cruise have only collaborated on Interview With a Vampire, which came out in 1994. Lately, there has been a buzz around a sequel to Days of Thunder.

More about F1

F1 revolves around Sonny Hayes, who used to be a celebrated Formula One racer in his young days. However, his career came to a halt after he suffered injuries in an accident. Years later, Sonny comes out of retirement to mentor a racer named Joshua Pearce. Kosinski and Pitt have produced the film with Lewis Hamilton, Chad Omen, Dede Gardner, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Jeremy Kleiner.

The cast of F1 includes,