Adam Driver stars as Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s upcoming biopic ‘Ferrari‘.

The irony is the 39-year-old Hollywood star was actually not actually allowed to drive a Ferrari sports car while filming the movie.

READ MORE: Fresh from House of Gucci, Adam Driver to star in movie about Ferrari

Ferrari is famously super fastidious when it comes to who can do what with its cars.

That’s why we often hear about this or that celebrity being banned or blacklisted by the brand.

However, for once, Ferrari’s unique policy didn’t play a part in the whole thing.

The movie is set in 1957 and it only features cars from that era.

To say that those cars are tricky to get your hands on, let alone drive, would be an understatement.

The producers were simply too worried about the cars, and more importantly about Adam Driver’s safety, to take that risk.

The Academy-nominated actor himself explained what happened behind the scenes at a press conference for the film at the 80th Venice Film Festival.

“They were the scariest things on set, but they wouldn’t let me drive the cars for insurance reasons,” Adam Driver said.

However, not everyone on set was barred from driving the cars.

Former Grey’s Anatomy star and known car enthusiast Patrick Dempsey had the chance to get behind the wheel of some of the 1950s Ferraris featured in the movie.

“It was quite terrifying. Driving a modern car you have a roll cage, but there was no cage with these cars,” Dempsey said.

Dempsey plays Italian Formula One driver Piero Taruffi in the movie.

So why could Dempsey get behind the wheel while Adam Driver couldn’t?

Well, 57-year-old Dempsey is a bona fide racing driver in real life.

He has his own racing team, called Dempsey-Proton, and he’s competed in a variety of racing events, including the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Talk about method acting.

The first trailer for the upcoming biopic on Ferrari’s founder Enzo Ferrari has just dropped.

The trailer is already going viral on Twitter / X, mostly due to an amusing coincidence.

READ MORE: “Lamborghini: The Man Behind The Legend” teaser trailer has just dropped

Directed by Michael Mann, the Ferrari movie stars Adam Driver as the titular character.

With our Hollywood producer hat on, we’re going to go ahead and assume that Driver was cast simply because he’s very bankable at the moment.

And also because he’s played the role of a famous Italian businessman before, when he starred as Maurizio Gucci in Ridley Scott’s thriller ‘House of Gucci‘.

However, many people are saying it’s ironic that the role of Ferrari went to Adam ‘Driver’.

“Love that he’s being played by someone named Driver,” one said.

“Has someone already made the joke that Adam DRIVER is the perfect cast for Ferrari?” another asked.

Enzo Ferrari’s life story has been told several times before, but this time we get to see him under a totally different light.

The script is loosely based on Enzo Ferrari’s biography, and it focuses on a particularly troubled year in Ferrari’s life.

His son Dino just died, his drivers weren’t winning any races, and his company was on the brink of bankruptcy.

The trailer reflects that, with a dark tone and slow-paced rhythm.

We should also note that there’s no dialogue in the trailer except for one line.

“When you get into one of my cars, you get in to win,” Driver / Ferrari says in the trailer.

Simply titled ‘Ferrari’, the movie stars Penélope Cruz as Ferrari’s wife Laura and Patrick Dempsey as Italian racing driver Piero Taruffi.

It was filmed on a budget of $90 million, and it is scheduled to release in the US on December 25, 2023.

Barbie has yet again secured another box office landmark.

The movie has now surpassed the eighth Harry Potter film, making it Warner Bros’ most successful worldwide release ever.

READ MORE! Driver played by Orlando Bloom in Gran Turismo movie takes us behind the scenes

The Greta Gerwig-directed feature has been a huge hit with audiences since its release in July.

Starring Margot Robbie as the eponymous character, Barbie shot to the top of box office charts worldwide.

And it’s remained seriously popular in the five weeks since its release.

As of Monday (August 29), the film passed $1.342 billion at the global box office.

That’s the amount grossed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

Until now, the eighth and final teen wizarding movie based on JK Rowling’s novels was Warner Bros’ top-grossing film.

In the US alone, Barbie hit $592.8 million on Sunday (27 August), while overseas it reached $745.5 million.

Later this week it’s projected to cross the $600 million mark in the US – and when it does, it will become only the 13th movie in history to do so.

It’s safe to say Barbie has been a massive success for Warner Bros having reached several signifgicant landmarks.

For starters, it sailed past Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight to become the film company’s biggest release in North America.

Not only that, but it officially became the highest-grossing title of the year in North American cinemas after surpassing the earnings of The Super Mario Bros Movie released in April.

After three weeks of showings, Barbie had raked in $1.03 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film by a single female director.

As things stand, Frozen II – co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck – holds the title of the top-grossing film of all time by a female director.

That particular movie made an impressive $1.43 billion worldwide.

In other words, Barbie (only) has another $88 million to go to equal the record.

The long-awaited Gran Turismo movie is finally hitting theaters in the US.

It stars Stranger Things icon David Harbour, Archie Madekwe as the main character and Orlando Bloom as Darren Cox.

We’ve had a chat with Darren Cox, and he’s given us an exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpse into what actually happened.

READ MORE: Hollywood is making a ‘Gran Turismo’ movie – and it’s got a legit plotline

The movie is based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, the youngest winner of the GT Academy.

Launched in 2008, the GT Academy gave skilled Gran Turismo gamers the chance to earn a real-life career as a racing driver.

Speaking to Supercarblondie.com, Cox recalls the exact moment a life-changing lightbulb switched on in his brain.

“[We were] at Bedford Autodrome. I compared lap times and realized the fastest players in the game also happened to be the fastest drivers on the track,” he said.

It was at that moment that Cox realized he was on to something, and began pitching the GT Academy idea to Nissan.

Mind you, getting the Japanese automaker’s top brass to sign off on the project wasn’t as easy as it looked in the movie.

“It took three minutes in the movie, but in reality it took me three years to convince them,” Cox told Supercarblondie.com

Cox also joked about some of the aspects of the story that were glamorized in the movie.

“The way Orlando Bloom plays my character is a lot more corporate,” Cox said.

“[But] I don’t remember having a corporate jet. We were more EasyJet than corporate jet.”

The movie combines characters based on real people and totally fictional characters.

One of the characters that is definitely real is Kazunori ‘Kaz’ Yamauchi, the creator of the Gran Turismo video game, who’s played by Japanese actor Takehiro Hira.

Hardcore fans will be happy to learn the movie includes a juicy cameo of the real ‘Kaz’ as a sushi chef.

Left, Bloom and Madekwe – Right, Kazunori’s cameo

Despite the movie being co-produced by Sony, Cox said Kazunori wasn’t really hands on.

“Once the Hollywood train leaves the Hollywood station, it’s down to the executive producer and the director,” he said.

Still, aside from the glamorization of his character and the ‘Hollywoodization’ of certain elements of the story, Cox said the movie is pretty accurate.

He’s especially thrilled with the casting of Orlando Bloom as Danny Moore, a fictional character based on Cox himself.

“I told my wife and she said there’s no way an actor like that is going to play you,” he said.

“But it happened. It’s surreal.”

Filmed on a budget of $60 million, the movie is now finally available globally after the Hollywood strike delayed its release in the US.

There’s a good chance you read the children’s story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang growing up.

You may have even seen the movie about the flying car.

If you have, you’ll probably remember the iconic windmill that featured.

READ MORE! Margot Robbie’s crazy earnings and bonuses for Barbie just revealed

It just so happens, the windmill – Caractacus Pott’s home in the 1967 film – has gone up for sale.

It’s actually called Cobstone Windmill and it’s located in Ibstone, Buckinghamshire which is in South East England.

Painted with a classic black base, cap and sails, the mill overlooks the beautiful village of Turville.

The infamous property reached international heights when it hit the big screen as the home of the eccentric inventor who was played by Dick Van Dyke.

But that wasn’t it’s only brush with stardom, after the lavish town became the center of the lovable BBC sitcom Vicar of Dibley.

It’s also featured in other British classic TV shows, including Midsomer Murders, Pride and Prejudice, and Goodnight Mister Tom.

The former smock mill, which was built around 1816, was cosmetically restored by producers before filming Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

The story goes, the mill was originally used to grind cereal until 1872 when it fell into disuse.

But in 1967, the mill caught the eye of film producer Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli.

The team made quick work of dressing up the property in the heart of the English countryside so the picturesque windmill could serve as a film location for the Hollywood hit.

Four years later, actress Hayley Mills – who appeared in six films for Walt Disney – bought the mill with her husband Roy Boulting, who continued to restore the gorgeous establishment.

It’s understood the mill’s current owners bought the breath-taking property from Aston Martin owner Sir David Brown back in the 1980s.

Those interested in purchasing the Grade II windmill will be pleased to know it also comes with the main house, a generous double garage, and a swimming pool.

It also features acres of land which features a large tractor barn, a workshop, a stable building, and a store.

You’ll have to have deep pockets, though, as the mill has a guide price of £9 million ($11.4 million).

Margot Robbie will be laughing all the way to the bank when Barbie mania wraps up.

Not only did the Australian actor star in the movie, she produced it through her production company LuckyChap Entertainment.

READ MORE! Barbenheimer surpasses huge box office milestones and break multiple records

What she’ll walk away with is a combination of her salary for the film as well as bonuses related to the box office.

Crazy when you think about it, as Margot Robbie claims she wasn’t even first choice to play the lead role.

Robbie recently told Vogue that both she and director Greta Gerwig initially wanted Gal Gadot for the role but scheduling conflicts got in the way.

Speaking of Gerwig, the director is also set for a humungous payday when the film eventually finishes its theatrical run.

And rightly so, as Barbie’s become the highest-grossing film ever directed by a female.

It did so by knocking Frozen II director Jennifer Lee off the top spot.

Not only that, but it’s become Warner Bros’ second-highest grossing film after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

The film’s already made nearly $1.2 billion from cinemas around the world.

So it probably comes as little surprise that Margot Robbie is expected to earn a staggering $50 million, including bonuses, for her role in the film.

It’s likely to continue racking in the money as people keep flocking to theaters, too.

That’s if they’re allowed to go and see it, as the movie’s been banned in several countries.

Kuwait has removed it from cinemas to protect “public ethics” because the movie “promulgates ideas and beliefs that are alien to Kuwaiti society and public order”.

A very specific detail in one scene has caused Vietnam to pull it from cinemas, too.

In the background of the scene there’s a child-like drawing of a map with a depiction of a Nine Dash Line, which is used on Chinese maps to show the territory it claims in the South China Sea.

And it could soon be banned in Lebannon, too, as authorities there have issued a call for it to be removed.

They fear it “promotes homosexuality and transsexuality… supports rejecting a father’s guardianship, undermines and ridicules the role of the mother, and questions the necessity of marriage and having a family”.

‘Barbenheimer’ keeps breaking box office records.

Barbie and Oppenheimer – ie, Barbenheimer – were released on the same day, and now they’re sharing a similar trajectory at the box office.

READ MORE: The Barbie movie to ‘smash Oppenheimer at the box office’

Let’s start with Barbie.

Directed by Greta Gerwing, the movie just passed the $1 billion mark, setting the box office record for the best-performing movie by a female director.

Even though Barbie and Oppenheimer both largely qualify as ‘blockbusters’, it became immediately clear that the former would outperform the latter.

Within the first week, Barbie had already grossed $330 million, while Oppenheimer had ‘only’ grossed roughly $170 million.

At the time of writing, Barbie has grossed $1.031 billion.

Oppenheimer was filmed on a slightly lower budget ($100 million vs $150 million), and it has grossed $552 million so far.

But this too is a big deal because it means that Oppenheimer is now the highest-grossing World War II movie ever, having surpassed both Dunkirk and Saving Private Ryan.

Even though they both feature a stellar cast and Oscar-nominated directors, these two movies couldn’t be more different.

Barbie tells the story of the eponymous doll as she and Ken struggle to adjust to the real world.

Oppenheimer tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the ‘father’ of the atomic bomb as we know it.

There’s been so much hype around the Barbenheimer phenomenon that we almost forgot about another major Hollywood production that was released just a few days prior.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I, starring Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, hit theaters on July 12.

The latest (and second-to-last) installment to the Mission: Impossible saga cost a whopping $291 million to make.

However, it has only grossed $493 million so far and it is unlikely to turn a profit.

According to CinemaBlend, Dead Reckoning’s lower-than-expected box office revenue is largely due to the fact that everyone prioritized Barbenheimer.

Filming the Meg sequel – Meg 2: The Trench – was much harder than anticipated, and production isn’t taking any shortcuts.

From the amazing underwater scenes to the actors’ intense training, the amount of work behind the scenes was insane.

This is what we’re going to talk about in this week’s episode of Xplained.

READ MORE: Barbenheimer has blown up the global box office

After Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws, our fascination with the ocean’s deadliest predator got bigger.

The 2018 film The Meg focuses on the shark’s predecessor, the Megalodon – hence why the film is titled ‘Meg’.

Water survival training was gruelling. Filming underwater for hours is physically and mentally draining.

The good news, for the audience and the production team alike, is that the film stars Jason Statham, a former member of Britain’s National Swimming Squad and former professional diver.

Filming comprised three parts.

The first one included simulating underwater scenes in a studio against a green screen, and then second, actors performed some of the moves they would have to do in the film in a swimming pool.

And then lastly, filming in open water commenced.

FIlming out at sea

In order to make the action scenes look real, they filmed for a month at sea, mostly in Thailand.

Statham even swam with real sharks to learn their behaviour.

Filming in open water helped make a lot of scenes more realistic, but it also made things more complicated.

“The biggest challenge is the water is always changing. One day you can have nice, smooth sea and the next day you get choppy sea,” stunt coordinator Gary Powell said.

Studio tanks

The production team also used studio tanks.

The biggest advantage here is that you can of course control what’s going on with the water.

Mind you, these are more than glorified swimming pools.

Some of these tanks are 18 meters (59 ft) wide and 5 meters deep (16 ft), holding up to 1.2 million liters of water.

One of the tanks they used could hold 2.5 million waters, and it even had a wave maker.

It is surrounded by a massive green screen, too.

Visual effects and animatronix

Obviously, there are a lot of visual effects in these films.

For example, the high-speed chase with the gliders was filmed against a green screen.

Designing megalodon was by far the trickiest part, though.

These giants used to be anywhere between 60 and 80 feet long, the same size ten sharks.

About Meg 2: The Trench

Meg 2: The Trench, titled Shark 2 in certain territories, stars Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Page Kennedy and Skyler Samuels.

Filmed on a budget on $129 million, the movie is scheduled for theatrical release in the US on August 4, 2023.

Oppenheimer is out now, making big bucks at the box office and garnering rave reviews from movie critics.

But keen-eyed viewers are now spotting a historical error that the production team let slip under the radar.

Hollywood is the land of perfectionists and nitpicking, so it was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

READ MORE: The Barbie movie to ‘smash Oppenheimer at the box office’

In a scene that’s supposedly set in 1945, the characters are celebrating in the auditorium and waving US flags.

But the US flags in question have 50 stars.

This is a factual and historical error because the 50-star flag would only be introduced over a decade later, in 1959, after the inclusion of Hawaii and Alaska.

For context, the entire movie is set in the 1940s.

It tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the ‘father’ of the atomic bomb as we know it.

It may sound like a small error to some but a lot of people noticed.

People took to Instagram and Twitter – sorry, we mean ‘X’ – to point out the mistake.

“Major issue with Oppenheimer: in the scene where they’re celebrating in the auditorium, the small American flags people are holding are 50 star flags instead of the historically accurate 48-star flag,” one viewer said.

“Yeah so Oppenheimer is unarguably one of the best films I’ve ever seen. The only flaw is that they showed American flags with 50 stars on it when the US only had 48 states in 1945 lol. That’s it. The rest of it is perfect,” another user wrote.

Yet another user said they feel sorry for the guy who counted the stars, which is a good point.

“Well, they f***d up badly with this. I feel bad for the guy who counted the stars,” the user said.

As the SAG-AFTRA strike rages on, Netflix is turning to AI to keep its projects on the road.

The streaming giant just advertised an artificial intelligence product manager role – and they have a near million-dollar budget for the new position.

READ MORE: These are Hollywood’s most daring actors when it comes to stunts

As actors and writers pursue higher base pay and better job security, Netflix is hiring a specialist for up to USD $900,000 (£698,900) a year.

Unsurprisingly, this has drawn spectacular criticism online.

The job listing says Netflix strives to “shape the future of entertainment” and that “artificial intelligence is powering innovation in all areas of the business”.

Netflix says AI not only aids users in finding the right film and shows to watch but they’re using it to actually make content.

In the posting, Netflix revealed it intends to “develop, deploy and improve their machine-learning models.”

The hot topic of AI is becoming a scary one for many creatives as it threatens job prospects and, currently, is taking the wind out of striking.

Its effect on the industry is a core issue being campaigned against by both the Screen Actors Guild of America and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

The Hollywood hiatus shows no signs of stopping as big corporations continue to replace the work of humans with advancing tech.

In fact, SAG-AFTRA strikers recently turned down a pretty controversial offer.

Actors were reportedly offered immortalised AI-enhanced CGI versions of themselves, for the grand one-off payment of $200.

The quickly rejected proposal would have seen performers scanned for their likeness to be used indefinitely in future projects, without receiving residual payments.

SAG-AFTRA went on record saying studios would “own that scan, their image, their likeness, and be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation.”

The Hollywood strike is continuing full steam ahead, but so is AI.