A Tale of Two, No Three, Movie Posters.

by Wallace Wyss –

Fox, now owned by Disney but keeping the Fox name for now, has changed the name of the upcoming film Ford v. Ferrari to “Le Mans ‘66” in Europe, causing the website ScreenRant to almost have a conniption.

Their point was that by changing the title to focus in on a single race, it sounds like a sporting event like Barcelona ’66 or some other one time event. True Le Mans in 1966 did only happen once but overall the film leads up to the 1966 race as the climactic moment, so from the producer’s point of view, it’s OK.

It’s not known if they thought the title Ford v. Ferrari in Europe would cause trouble with the copyrighted books Ford vs. Ferrari (by Pritchard) which they did not list as their book source. In fact, they jettisoned the book Go Like Hell by AJ Baime before starting production, re-selling the book rights to a TV production company.

In Italy the title is “LeMans ’66: La Grande Sfida” (Le Mans ’66 – The Great Challenge).

Personally like Rhett Butler I don’t give a damn–I just want that movie out there to pull kids away from faces glued to those damned smartphones. I would even suggest to Fox they use my book title SHELBY: The Man the Cars the Legend, but then I’d want to sell them my book rights (an offer with strings attached…).

The Ford v FerrariPosters

The first one for domestic consumption was boring in the extreme. Oh, the drawing style was fair, but the top 2/3rds was empty space. There was a time in the modern art world when empty space was The Thing.

The second poster from Fox was a little better showing the famous LeMans grandstand with Shelby walking with Miles. One problem is, in the poster, Shelby is hiding his cowboy hat as if he was ashamed of it. As a cowboy hat wearer myself (going back to my days on the Bitterroot range in 1960), I find this hard to believe—he was a proud wearer of the hat, and owner of three ranches and at least one notable horse.

In that picture they also make Shelby look short, and Miles the same height as Shelby when Shelby was taller. And they never spent a dime to perm Damon’s hair to make him look like Shelby, who wore curls that go curlier as he drove hard (see his 1959 LeMans victory shots).

As for the European poster for Le Mans ’66 I also have bones to pick. Again Damon looks short, and curl-less. And Bale, as Miles, looks angry like he’s about to spit.

But at least there’s a good shot of the GT40 vs. a Ferrari P3 or P4 or P3/4.

I think the stupid part about changing the title in Europe is that forever more when Americans refer to the movie they will be using the American title and when the Brits and Euros refer to it they will be using the European market title. Why confuse us?

Let us know what you think in the Comments.