For racing fans, stories don’t get much bigger than American automaker Ford’s epic 1960s quest to topple Italian racing giant Ferrari at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. A new movie about the rivalry, Ford v Ferrari, is arriving this year, and we now have our first official look at stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale in their respective roles.
Damon portrays legendary car designer Carroll Shelby in the film, while Bale plays English racecar driver Ken Miles, who joins forces with Shelby to design a car that can take on six-time defending Le Mans champions, Ferrari. The car the pair came up with ended up being the Ford GT40, a car which is now often regarded as one of the downright coolest cars ever built (it also bested Ferrari in 1966 at Le Mans, its first of four consecutive victories at the track). EW was the first to release the film’s first look photos, and they give a pretty good sense of the movie’s 1960s style — including a nice shot of another all-time great car, the Shelby Cobra. You can scroll through the photos below.
The film is directed by James Mangold, who previously helmed Logan, and he revealed to EW that this movie will also focus on character over spectacle, calling it the “Butch and Sundance in the world of racing.” Mangold also revealed that the film uses real cars rather than CGI, in the hope of adding an authentic quality to the races. “I wanted to see a racing film where the cars weren’t all digital creations [and] we were really out there on the track,” Mangold said. “And not just so we could talk about it when we’re doing press, but because it actually makes a physical difference when you see it on screen.”
We’ll have to judge that difference for ourselves when Ford v Ferrari drives into theaters on November 15.
