EXCLUSIVE: Christian Bale has said yes to playing Italian car magnate Enzo Ferrari in the long-awaited film by director Michael Mann. The picture, which will shoot next summer, isn’t set up just yet. But as we ponder the films up for grabs at the upcoming Telluride, Toronto and Venice Film Festivals, is there a more desirable presale property right now than Ferrari, with Mann and Bale driving the vehicle?

Mann has been working under the hood of this film for close to 15 years, at one time in partnership with the late director Sydney Pollack. It is a real passion project for the director and is exactly the kind of picture he should be making. The film takes place in 1957, a year where passion, failure, success and death and life all collided. Several actresses circling the female leads. Mann and Bale previously teamed on 2009’s Public Enemies.

I know things didn’t work out for Mann most recently with Blackhat. As a longtime fan of his films, this sounds to me to be potentially one that I will probably see over and over, as I have Mann films including The Last Of The Mohicans, The Insider, Collateral, and most especially Heat, the latter of which is 20 years old this fall.