Netflix has greenlighted "The Formula," a crime thriller based on Formula One and starring Robert De Niro and John Boyega.
The movie will feature Boyega, best known as Finn from the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, as an American F1 driver who becomes entangled with the Mafia, and is forced to serve as a getaway driver to save his family, according to Motorsport.com.
The show will be written, directed, and produced by Gerard McMurray, whose previous credits include the 2017 Netflix production "Burning Sands" and 2019's "The First Purge."
"It's the story of a young man from Detroit who becomes an international racing star in the world of Formula One under the tutelage of his mentor with old mob ties," McMurray said in an Instagram post Monday.
No other details of the plot have been released, but it will be interesting to see how deep "The Formula" delves into the world of F1. The racing-driver-as-getaway-driver premise was already used in 2011's "Drive," which starred Ryan Gosling as an aspiring racer working as a wheelman for the mob, but that movie as a standard crime thriller, without the F1 angle.
In addition to "The Formula," Netflix is developing a miniseries about Ayrton Senna. Scheduled to launch in 2022, the eight-episode miniseries will tell a fictionalized version of three-time F1 champion's life story. The streaming service is also launching "The Crew," a comedy series starring Kevin James as a NASCAR crew chief, which airs Feb. 15, while NBC just greenlighted "American Auto," a sitcom about executives at a fictional Detroit automaker.