Hugh Jackman is in talks to play Enzo Ferrari in a biopic from the Oscar-nominated film-maker Michael Mann.
According to Deadline, the star is likely to take on the role of the motor racing driver and entrepreneur while Noomi Rapace is set to play his estranged wife, Linda. The pair reportedly had a difficult and tempestuous relationship.
The project has been in development for 17 years and was originally a partnership between Mann and Sydney Pollack, who died in 2008. Christian Bale was once attached but reportedly quit over concerns about the weight gain required. Now that Jackman has finished playing Wolverine, he is able to break free from his strict workout regimen.
Robert De Niro was also linked to a competing biopic in 2015 but it is unclear whether this will still be going ahead. Mann’s project will take place in 1957, as Ferrari was locked in a bitter rivalry with Maserati.
It is the Heat director’s first film since 2015’s Blackhat, a cyber-thriller starring Chris Hemsworth and Viola Davis that became one of the year’s biggest flops, making just $19m worldwide from an $80m budget.
Jackman is coming off strong reviews and big box office for Logan, his Wolverine swansong. He will next be seen in The Greatest Showman alongside Michelle Williams and Zac Efron.
After breaking out in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rapace has been in the high-profile franchise films Prometheus and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. She will next be seen with Orlando Bloom in the thriller Unlocked, the Will Smith action fantasy Bright and the sci-fi sequel Alien: Covenant.
