The sports drama F1 is facing the heat at the box office, with fresh competition from Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman. And with Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps around the corner, F1 will rely on international audiences and older crowds to continue pulling in the numbers at the box office. The film recently recovered its hefty reported budget of $300 million, and is now aiming to pass the $500 million mark at the global box office. Set in the high-stakes world of Formula One racing and funded by Apple in collaboration with the F1 brand, the well-reviewed sports drama is already the highest-grossing movie to be produced by a tech company.
It’s another goal that Apple has beaten its competitors to, after winning the coveted Best Picture Oscar some years ago for Coda. With over $125 million domestically and around $360 million at the global box office, F1 has overtaken hit films such as The Lego Batman Movie ($312 million), Knives Out ($313 million), and Battleship ($313 million). Directed by Peter Berg, Battleship was released in 2012 to poor reviews and a disastrous box office response; incidentally, it has a lot in common with F1, which is also a fairly obvious attempt to turn non-film IP into a big-screen franchise. Battleship cost a reported $220 million to produce, but sank commercially. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie lost Universal around $150 million.
Starring Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna, and Liam Neeson, the movie is sits at a “rotten” 34% score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “It may offer energetic escapism for less demanding filmgoers, but Battleship is too loud, poorly written, and formulaic to justify its expense — and a lot less fun than its source material.” The film was designed a potential crossover with the Transformers and the G.I. Joe franchises, but the idea never took off. Battleship’s failure also hurt Kitsch’s career, after the even bigger bomb John Carter, which supposedly lost Disney $200 million.
The Crowd Continues to Cheer for ‘F1’
The jury’s still out on F1, which hails from Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and stars Brad Pitt in the lead role of a seasoned race car driver who’s summoned back into the limelight from obscurity. Unlike Battleship, the movie opened to positive reviews, and really seemed to excite fans. They’ve awarded it a near-perfect 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch F1 in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
