'Ferrari' Biopic Might Be a Box Office Disaster, Is Enzo Ferrari an Unbearable Figure?

This movie seemed that it had everything to turn into a blockbuster. An amazing casting with Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, and Patrick Dempsey. A famous director to put everything in place on the set: Michael Mann. A popular topic that would attract both racing fans and street-legal Ferraris enthusiasts. But apparently, nothing really worked, and the movie has yet to gain traction.

Movieweb calls it a "box office disaster," while Slashfilm points out that it is struggling at the box office. It is Michael Mann’s least commercially successful film in over 35 years.

With a budget of $95 million, 'Ferrari' has only ticked $11.8 million in cinemas across the US and $4 million worldwide, with only $6.8 million on its first four days on the big screens. It ranked eighth in its first week, lagging behind Wonka, Aquaman, The Color Purple, and others, which made critics tag it as a failure. Back in August, director Michael Mann stated that the movie had a $110 budget, which was way more than originally reported.

The 6.8 stars out of 10 on IMDb might also drive off moviegoers. Furthermore, Enzo Ferrari is regarded as an unbearable character. Il Commendatore is living a double life with his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz), trying to overcome the death of his son, Dino, but also spending most of his free time with his mistress, Lina Lardi, who gave him a son, Piero.

Enzo would not acknowledge the boy because the law was complicated and would have forced him to estrange his wife in order to be able to legally change the name of his son from Lardi to Ferrari.

Il Commendatore, which is Italian for The Commander, is pictured as a businessman who would be able to push his drivers into risking their lives in order to get his cars up on the podium at the end of the race.

Today, Piero, 78, is Enzo’s only living son. He never met Dino, even though he was 11 years old when Ferrari’s elder son passed away from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In a recent interview, Piero talked about what was based on reality and what was fiction in the “Ferrari” biopic.

There is also the horrific crash that happened at the Mille Miglia in 1957. The car driven by Alfonso de Portago suffered a puncture, spun out of control, and flew off the road, killing both driver and co-driver, but also nine spectators, five of them being children.

The previous year, Ferrari had lost another driver in a terrible crash during training at Modena Autodrome. Star driver Eugenio Castellotti was testing a new Ferrari Grand Prix car for the upcoming season. In an attempt to break the lap record, the 26-year-old driver hit a curb at a chicane and was thrown out of the car. The car overturned several times in the air and slammed against the concrete members' stand.

If moviegoers are just waiting for the right time to go watch 'Ferrari' or they are off to other movies this time of the year, we have yet to see. One thing is for sure. With an almost $100 million budget invested in the movie, STX Entertainment, the entity that came up with 70% of the money, is not going to sit and watch how the motion picture fails big.