New McQueen/Le Mans documentary

[John Binion]

From Variety:

Docu follows Steve McQueen during production of feature 'Le Mans'


Leo Barraclough
LONDON — Content is to steer worldwide rights to Steve McQueen docu “The Man & Le Mans,” which will be revving up at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Gabriel Clarke and Jon McKenna direct and produced the pic, which will be exec produced by Andrew Marriott, Richard Wiseman and Content’s Jamie Carmichael.

Pic starts in 1970, when McQueen was one of Hollywood’s hottest stars and had secured a six-picture deal with Cinema Center Studios, which enabled him to pick his own projects. McQueen was a motor-racing fanatic, and his passion project was “Le Mans,” which centered on the 24-hour race in France.

McQueen said: “If we’re going to do this, we are going to do it right. No typical Hollywood bullshit — no clever twists, no perfect ending. It has to be pure. And if we’re going to do it about one race, it has to be Le Mans.”

During the pic’s production, director John Sturges quit, McQueen’s marriage fell apart, his company was on the brink of bankruptcy, and he was in constant fear for his life after learning that he was on Charles Manson’s “death list.”

The docu makes use of hours of never-seen-before footage that has remained, until now, untouched in a Paris basement. It attempts to take the viewer inside the mind of McQueen as he fought to save his film.

Carmichael said: ” ‘Senna’ meets ‘Bullitt’ in ‘The Man & Le Mans’; it’s going to be an extraordinary, moving, white-knuckle drive with one of the greatest movie stars of all time, through the prism of the film that almost destroyed him.”

The docu is set to begin pre-production in the spring and will then be filming at Le Mans race track, concluding at the end of the summer in the U.S.

FILED UNDER: Berlin Film FestivalEuropean Film MarketSteve Mcqueen

[67er911S]

Interesting, thank you.

[Jim Garfield]

Can't wait! There has got to be some great footage that never made it into the film.

[Bummler]

If you haven't got it get the book a French Kiss With Death...

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[67er911S]

any news on this?