#‘Ferrari’ Producer Plans $55M Studio in Tuscany

Italian film producer Andrea Iervolino, whose credits include the Oscar-nominated Tell It Like a Woman and Michael Mann’s upcoming Ferrari biopic, is laying plans for a new film studio complex in Tuscany.

Iervolino says the $55 million (€50 million) backlot, Tuscany Film Studios, will be located outside Florence and could begin operation as early as fall 2024.

“My idea is simple,” Iervolino told THR Roma. “To create an avant-garde film hub in a place that is, in itself, one of the most beautiful in the world, where stars would gladly come to shoot… I was in Rome the other day, dining with James Franco. I told him about the project, which is already in the operational phase, and he said, ‘I would come to shoot there tomorrow!”

Italy is enjoying a bit of a production boom at the moment, thanks to the country’s generous 40 percent tax incentive for international shoots and the Italian government’s support for the legendary, state-owned Rome studio Cinecittà. Mann shot Ferrari, which stars Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz and which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival later this month, at the studio. Joe Wright set up at Cinecittà with the Italian star Luca Marinelli (The Old Guard) for his birth-of-Mussolini miniseries M. Son of the Century. And Roland Emmerich used the eternal city as a backdrop for his new gladiator series Those About to Die, starring Anthony Hopkins.

With this increasing demand, independent producers see an opportunity to build out Italy’s production capacity. Tarak Ben Ammar, owner of leading Italian indie distributor Eagle Pictures, recently announced plans to break ground on his own, $50 million-plus studio outside Rome.

Iervolino’s plans are to build a backlot with both traditional sound stages and ones equipped for virtual reality — the studio will be the largest VR studio complex in Italy — and 360-degree production.

“Live action 360-degree cinema is the great frontier of the future,” said Iervolino, saying his new studios will be equipped to produce content for new VR headsets, like Apple’s Vision Pro. “We’ve already acquired a huge library of backgrounds and scenery from around the world, meaning, even for 360-degree immersive reality, there will be no need to go to Siberia or Bangkok to shoot a scene set in Siberia or Bangkok.”

The ambitious plans will also include a public movie theater, production offices and a hotel at the same complex.

“The hotel will be a luxury resort designed to accommodate the actors who will come to film at our studios. It will also be open to private customers. At the same time we will organize visits to the surrounding area, to wine estates. We plan to connect quality tourism with film production.”

With backing from billionaire heiress Monika Bacardi, Iervolino has built up several media companies, including AMBI Media Group, Iervolino & Lady Bacardi Entertainment, TaTaTu and Space 11, the latter a production group that is partnering with experts from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to produce projects to be shot in outer space. Alongside Mann’s Ferrari, Iervolino also produced Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend starring Frank Grillo, Gabriel Byrne and Mira Sorvino and is in development on another racing car legend: Maserati: A Racing Life. In May, Iervolino acquired a stake in U.S. professional soccer team Miami FC.