![\"Jerry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ab01593f76df286f20dc9085b20165f9.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nOn the awards campaign trail with the racing drama \u201cF1,\u201d Jerry Bruckheimer felt a little bit like the underdog. That was partly because of his history with the Oscars: Considering his long and storied career, which includes everything from producing Michael Mann\u2019s debut feature \u201cThief\u201d to overseeing global franchises such as \u201cBeverly Hills Cop\u201d and \u201cPirates of the Caribbean,\u201d it seems like a miscalculation that Bruckheimer didn\u2019t get his first Best Picture nomination until 2022\u2019s \u201cTop Gun: Maverick.\u201d<\/p>\n
But beyond that, the veteran producer noticed something when he asked audiences at each screening how many in the theater were seeing \u201cF1\u201d for the first time. \u201cEighty-five percent of the people hadn\u2019t seen the movie,\u201d Bruckheimer said. He was amazed. This was in October, November and December. The movie, which opened last summer, had a long theatrical window, followed by digital and physical home media releases and, finally, a spot on Apple TV.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople hadn\u2019t seen the movie,\u201d he repeated. \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable. Every screening we did, it was the same thing. People hadn\u2019t seen the movie because they put it in the category, oh, it\u2019s a racing movie. But when they see it, it\u2019s romantic, it\u2019s dramatic, it\u2019s got great characters. They didn\u2019t realize that until they saw it. When they see it, they love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Academy voters did, and they showed their love by giving Bruckheimer his second Best Picture nomination in four years, after a career spanning more than 40 years without any noms. It still doesn\u2019t totally add up, but at least the math is getting better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thrilled. It was amazing,\u201d Bruckheimer said from Orlando the morning of the nominations, when \u201cF1\u201d also earned nods for Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. \u201cIt\u2019s really nice when your peers nominate you for awards \u2014 people that know the business and understand how hard it is to get these movies made and to make them successful, and I\u2019m glad they all recognize it.\u201d<\/p>\n
To get the Best Picture nomination, a mild surprise on a morning without many shocks, Apple waged a smart awards campaign. The movie had made $631 million since Warner Bros. released it theatrically, but it was still considered a long shot for consideration. A handsomely made sports picture starring Brad Pitt, directed by \u201cMaverick\u2019s\u201d Joseph Kosinski and produced by Bruckheimer? For the Oscars?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jerry Bruckheimer (Photo by Steve Limones for TheWrap)<\/p>\n
It turns out Bruckheimer was just as taken aback. \u201cI was pleasantly surprised. Obviously, I never expected anything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a miracle that we got the movie made and it became a hit, and then to get nominated\u2026 It\u2019s the cherry on the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
The producer was particularly thrilled by the nominations because they highlighted the entire team that made \u201cF1\u201d a reality. \u201cThe amount of work and effort they put into it is just phenomenal,\u201d he said. \u201cJust the editing \u2014 Stephen Mirrione had 5,000 hours of film he had to go through, and then he had all the film from the races. We had special cameras that Apple made from their iPhone that we put on two cars at every race. We had to go through all that, and then you have to craft the story and make the racing work, and all the different races from around the world, and you have to create drama and make every race different. The amount of work that he put in with Joe was just endless.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the visual effects, Kosinski, Bruckheimer and the crew followed the framework they used for \u201cTop Gun: Maverick.\u201d In that film, they placed actors into fighter jets believably. In \u201cF1,\u201d it was about inserting Pitt and others into actual Formula One races. \u201cWe had our car at a lot of the various racetracks but we couldn\u2019t have our car in an actual race,\u201d Bruckheimer said. \u201cWe shot the racing footage and then would (digitally) remove a car and put our car in there. And it\u2019s seamless.\u201d<\/p>\n
But they also had to tinker with the movie cars: The actors were driving F1 cars with smaller F2 engines, so the tires were narrower and had to be beefed up digitally. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell,\u201d said Bruckheimer proudly.<\/p>\n
This story first ran in the\u00a0Down to the Wire\u00a0issue of TheWrap\u2019s awards magazine.\u00a0Read more from the issue\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ethan Hawke photographed for TheWrap by Austin Hargrave<\/p>\n The post On the Awards Trail, \u2018F1\u2019 Producer Jerry Bruckheimer Felt Like the Underdog<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the awards campaign trail with the racing drama \u201cF1,\u201d Jerry Bruckheimer felt a little bit like the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[196452,49,48,578,22018,576,577,40572,40573,82],"class_list":["post-488204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-best-picture-nomination","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-cars","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-jerry-bruckheimer","tag-joseph-kosinski","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ethan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/75397b5689e3f2a498194ff7135767d2.jpeg\"\/)
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