What Happens In The ‘F1' End Credits Scene And If It Sets Up A Sequel

Forbes

4 hours ago

NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - JULY 09: Brad Pitt, star of the upcoming Formula One based movie, Apex, and ... More Damson Idris, co-star of the upcoming Formula One based movie, Apex, look on from the grid during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 09, 2023 in Northampton, England. (Photo by)
Brad Pitt's F1: The Movie is now in theaters. What happens during the movie's end credits and what does it say about a possible sequel?
Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), F1: The Movie opens in theaters nationwide on Friday. The official summary for the film reads, 'Dubbed 'the greatest that never was, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was Formula 1's most promising phenom of the 1990s until an accident on the track nearly ended his career. Thirty years later, he's a nomadic racer-for-hire when he's approached by his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), owner of a struggling Formula 1 team that is on the verge of collapse.
'Ruben convinces Sonny to come back to Formula 1 for one last shot at saving the team and being the best in the world. He'll drive alongside Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), the team's hotshot rookie intent on setting his own pace. But as the engines roar, Sonny's past catches up with him and he finds that in Formula 1, your teammate is your fiercest competition — and the road to redemption is not something you can travel alone.'
Rated PG-13, F1: The Movie also stars Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies and Kim Bodnia. Per F1: The Movie's studio, Apple Films, and its distributor Warner Bros., filming for the Formula 1 race car drama took place during 'actual Grand Prix weekends.'
Note: The next section of this article reveals major spoilers for 'F1: The Movie.'
How Significant Is The End Credits Scene For 'F1' And Does It Suggest More Is On The Way?
Generally, an end-credits or post-credits scene either wraps up loose ends from a scene earlier in the film and/or serves as a teaser for a potential sequel.
In the case of F1: The Movie, the end credits scene essentially wraps up a scene from earlier in the film, where Brad Pitt's Sonny Hayes was mulling over his next move after winning a race at Daytona.
Sonny's past is somewhat of a mystery for most of F1: The Movie. Essentially, he's a driver for hire because it fulfills a need to always be racing. It's a road that dates back 30 years earlier when a horrific accident during a Formula 1 race nearly took Sonny's life.
After years of aimless wandering, rife with personal failures and a gambling addiction, Sonny eventually gets back on track, so to speak. The road, however, was never to include another Formula 1 race, until Javier Bardem's Ruben Cervantes convinces Sony to join his failing race team in a Hail Mary effort to save the team from dissolving.
Sonny, however, must find a way to mentor Damson Idris' Joshua Pearce, whose arrogance and unwillingness to learn from a much older Sonny is dangerous in the high-risk world of racing.
Joshua eventually comes around and absorbs Sonny's wisdom, but it's a bumpy ride along the way including two separate catastrophic crashes that sidelined both drivers. After Sonny's Formula 1 crash, Ruben discovers that the driver's accident from three decades earlier was so severe that Sonny risks his life every time he hops into a Formula One race car.
As such, Ruben fires Sonny, but through a loophole Sonny is able to get behind the wheel in the last Formula One race of the season, giving the veteran driver one last chance to win an F1 race, which has eluded him his entire career.
After Sonny wins the race and achieves his lifelong dream, he moves on down the road. Wrapping up a scene earlier in the movie, Sonny answers a flyer seeking drivers and heads to Baja, Calif., to participate in off-road racing (for authenticity's sake, the Baja 1000 is a real race).
As the end credits begin to roll up the side of the screen, Sonny is shown racing the sand dunes in Baha in a dune buggy. The footage features up-close shots of Pitt, who does all of his own driving in F1: The Movie. Accompanying the footage is Ed Sheeran's new song, Drive. The music video for the song, which features Sheeran mostly singing on a Formula 1 race track, ends with the singer-musician driving a dune buggy himself.
As it turns out, the final sequence of the video what turns out to be a sly teaser for what happens during the end credits of F1: The Movie.
While F1: The Movie has action during the end credits, the film does not have any post-credits scenes. Of course, a post-credits scene isn't a pre-requisite for a sequel to be made in Hollywood, so the idea of a second F1: The Movie is still on the table but unlikely. After all, it appears that Sonny has accepted the grave risks that Formula One racing poses to his health and after winning an Formula 1 race, there's nothing more to achieve.
In the off-chance it happens, an F1: The Movie sequel could concentrate on Joshua's quest for an F1 championship with Pitt being his sideline mentor. However, that ground has largely been covered in this film and pretty much a foregone conclusion that he's destined for greatness.
The only other possibility of getting Pitt back behind the wheel for an F1 sequel — and it's a wild one — is for a studio to grant director Joseph Kosinski's wish to pair his Top Gun: Maverick star Tom Cruise and Pitt for an F1 and Days of Thunder crossover movie.
'Well, right now, it'd be Cole Trickle, who was [Cruise's] Days of Thunder character, we find out that he and [Brad Pitt's] Sonny Hayes have a past,' Kosinski told GQ U.K. in a recent interview. 'They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths … I heard about this epic go-kart battle on Interview With [the] Vampire that Brad and Tom had, and who wouldn't pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?'
F:1 The Movie, starring Brad Pitt, opens in theaters nationwide on Friday.