PARAMOUNT Pictures has picked up distribution rights to Michael Mann’s long-in-the-works Ferrari project, titled “Enzo Ferrari.”

    Christian Bale will play Enzo Ferrari, the Italian auto mogul. The long-gestating project finally got traction when it secured funding from Vendian and YooZoo Bliss Film Fund. YooZoo will distribute the movie in China.

    The project adapts the 1991 book “Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine,” written by Brock Yates. The book recounted Ferrari’s ascent — working for Alfa Romeo, first as a racer and then as a developer, founding his own company in 1947, racing victories in the 1950s and 1960s and letting Fiat slowly take control of the company. But it also showed Ferrari’s tyrannical and manipulative nature, how he pushed drivers to the breaking point and even death, his hatred of his lifelong marriage and his many affairs.

    If a deal is made, Noomi Rapace would play Ferrari’s wife, Laura Dominica. The project is eyeing an US$80 million budget.(SD-Agencies)