‘Peaky Blinders’ Creator Writing a Ferrari Drama Series for Apple

Motor racing has always offered drama to burn — just ask fans of Netflix’s Drive to Survive — and now there’s going to be a drama about the life of racing legend Enzo Ferrari. Peaky Blinders creator and Academy Award nominee Steven Knight is writing the series for Apple TV Plus, based on the biography Ferrari Rex by Luca Dal Monte.

If you were intrigued by the glimpse of Italian racing driver turned motoring mogul Enzo Ferrari in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari, this series will be for you. According to the synopsis provided by Apple, the show depicts Ferrai as “a titanic man, complex and multifaceted, who dedicated his genius to the mission of building the fastest racing car in history,” but whose legend included “a trail of tragedy and torment along the way.”

The show will focus on the period between 1956 and 1961, when Ferrari was reeling from the death of his son Dino and conflict with his driver Juan Manuel Fangio, forcing him to rebuild his racing team with five young racers.

Knight was Oscar-nominated for the 2004 drama Dirty Pretty Things, and more recently created Apple’s fantasy series See. His experience of fictionalizing real-life dramas includes Spencer and the upcoming SAS: Rogue Heroes. Italian director Stefano Sollima take the wheel on the series, having previously steered Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Suburra and Gomorrah. 

As so often happens, the show has a rival coming up in its rear-view mirror: a long-gestating biopic from Heat and Ali director Michael Mann, currently slated to star Adam Driver as the man himself (after Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman were previously announced). If you’re a fan of Formula 1, also look out for a forthcoming racing flick starring Brad Pitt, from Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and F1 champion Lewis Hamilton. 

There’s no word yet on who’ll play Ferrari in the Apple series, while neither project has a release date.