In about 4 years time, Andrea Iervolino hopes to launch a stadium and TV studios into orbit and broadcast the world’s first zero-gravity MMA struggle from area. He’d initially thought that Galactic Combat — his concept for reality-show-meets-sports-tournament following a bunch of spacebound fighters — can be prepared sooner, inside two or three years, however he’s says some “technical issues” amongst his aerospace companions has pushed his expectations again. “But it’s not really far away.”

Until then, the Italian producer will sadly should cope with work on stable floor below Earth’s much less thrilling gravitation pull, work that features — amongst a wide selection of actions throughout leisure, sport and past — being a producer on Michael Mann’s all-star and much-anticipated Venice-bowing biopic Ferrari. Alongside his enterprise companion, rum heiress Monika Bacardi (who additionally has a producers credit score) and thru their Iervolina & Lady Bacardi Entertainment (ILBE) banner, they put $24 million into the $90 million characteristic, offering the manufacturing providers in Italy, the place virtually all of it was shot. 

“It’s the most we’ve invested in any film,” claims Iervolina, who admits they got here on board the long-gestating undertaking on the final minute in 2022, the identical 12 months cameras beginning rolling. But it was a possibility he couldn’t flip down. 

Having produced a variety of movies with Bacardi during the last decade, largely decrease funds titles however a number of with huge identify abilities, together with Johnny Depp movies Minamata and Waiting for the Barbarians (which bowed in Venice in 2019), plus 2022’s Eva Longoria-starrer Tell it Like a Woman (Oscar nominated for finest authentic rating), Iervolina lately determined that they need to deal with making movies that informed the “amazing stories” of his nation’s entrepreneurial legends. 

And so, earlier this 12 months, they launched Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend, starring Frank Grillo, Mira Sorvino and Gabriel Byrne, and in March introduced they have been engaged on a biopic about Maserati. Even although Ferrari would see them be part of another person’s undertaking and have a far much less hands-on position — (like most of Iervolina’s movies, Lamborghini and Maserati have been absolutely developed, financed and produced in-house) — he was by no means going to cross on including arguably Italy’s most iconic sportscar to the cinematic storage. 

Iervolino describes his operation, with its personal manufacturing home, as “like an independent studio.” But it’s an unbiased studio with extra arms than most. Among the assorted companies falling below the rising empire with Bacardi, most of which have been acquired, are an encoding firm, a post-production firm, two animation studios in Serbia, a celeb endorsement firm and a sports activities advertising and marketing firm.

By himself, he simply introduced the brand new $55 million Tuscany Film Studios, which alongside regular soundstages may even embody, he claims, “Italy’s largest VR studio,” plus a luxurious resort to assist entice Hollywood expertise for whom a easy journey to Tuscany isn’t sufficient. Construction is because of begin in September, with the primary initiatives anticipated to shoot there in 2024. Further afield, he’s the founder and CEO of Space 11, which can be flinging MMA fighters into orbit to the “first space station dedicated to entertainment.” Then there’s TaTaTu, the video-on-demand and social platform, which he launched in 2018. TaTaTu began out as a part of the blockchain craze, rapidly saying plans to finance numerous movies, together with Waiting for the Barbarians and the Lamborghini biopic, by way of its digital tokens. After a few years, it ditched cryptocurrency, with the main focus now centering on the app, which rewards customers for viewing content material and interacting on the platform with cash that may be redeemed by bidding on auctions. 

Peculiar although it could sound (a minimum of to anybody over 40), TaTaTu is listed on the Euronext Growth Paris change and at present has a market capitalization, says Iervolino, of “precisely $5.8 billon” (truly $5.84 billion based on Euronext Growth Paris). Iervolino owns 97 p.c of TaTaTu making him, on paper a minimum of, reasonably rich. And TaTaTu has taken him into much more eclectic waters, the corporate having acquired an 85 p.c stake in London meals market operator Mercato.

It doesn’t sound too dangerous going for a person nonetheless in his 30s (Iervolino is 35) and whose first inroads into  movie started, he claims, as a youngster in his hometown of Cassino, crowdfunding for a characteristic the “old fashioned” method. “I literally went door by door in my hometown, to the pizzeria, the gelateria guy to ask for a little investment to produce my first movie,” he says. 

Despite nonetheless being a child, he says he had an ace up his sleeve, being among the many first to make movies digitally, and as Iervolino’s skillset in that area grew and the trade shifted in the direction of it, he says he began to promote his experience to different producers in want of the know-how. “They saw me as the young digital entrepreneur movie producer.” One of these producers was Luciano Martino, thought-about one in all Italy’s key filmmakers within the 60s and 70s, who on the age of 72 fashioned a enterprise partnership with a then 17-year-old Iervolino. “I was the digital mind of the company,” he notes, claiming that by the point he was 22 he was doing “eight or nine movies per year” (one in all which was 2004’s Jeremy Irons and Al Pacino starring Shakespeare adaptation The Merchant of Venice). 

Martino handed away in 2013 and Iervolino — solely 25 years outdated however already with round 45 motion pictures below his belt — discovered one other companion in Bacardi, the billionaire widow of Cuban rum scion Luis Adalberto Facundo Gomez del Campo Bacardi. 

According to Iervolino, Bacardi was “looking for a partner in the movie industry,” however the two additionally shared the “same vision” to make international movies reasonably than titles purely for the Italian market. So they teamed up, founding AMBI Pictures. The options quickly began coming, among the many first being Barry Levinson’s comedy drama The Humbling, additionally starring Pacino, then later the Andrea Boccelli biopic The Music of Silence, starring Antonio Banderas, and To the Bone, starring Lily Collins. 

Along the way in which, a relationship with Johnny Depp fashioned, in 2018 the star signing a improvement take care of TaTaTu to develop content material collectively. Waiting for the Barbarians had already been introduced, however then would come Minamata, and the Depp-voiced animated mini-series Puffins, adopted by Puffins Impossible. “We’re now doing some new stuff — we have a very good relationship,” says Iervolino. In potential an eyebrow-raising transfer, Iervolina & Lady Bacardi Entertainment lately produced and financed In the Fire, Amber Heard’s first characteristic following her courtroom battle with Depp. While he claims that Depp is a “very good friend — I love him and respect him deeply, artistically,” he says he has no relationship with Heard, his work on her movie purely enterprise. “I’m a professional. She did a movie with us and I was happy. My job is not to be a judge.” 

Alongside this fast-growing slate of options, the teaming of Iervolino and Barcadi would spark the frenzy of enterprise launches and acquisitions. Iervolina stated he realised early on that income from movies alone won’t be a stable supply of revenue (and certainly, few of his titles may declare to have been field workplace smashes) and that to “be relevant we should create synergies.” Which is the place the thought to offer movie servicing took place, alongside the animation studios (which don’t solely work on in-house initiatives), and the extra technical operations, corresponding to movie coding. 

But the much less clearly film-related parts of the portfolio he additionally claims to have introduced into the combination. After buying a majority stake in SoCal Sports — the sports activities company which has quite a few Italian soccer stars outdated and new on its books — he says he “changed the company” in order that it began producing sports activities video content material, it touchdown a direct hit on an area streaming web site with a documentary about iconic membership Milan. 

On the soccer entrance, Iervolino — this time performing alone — lately acquired an possession stake of U.S. membership Miami FC, which performs within the second tier of the USL. “Now I know how to monetize a team, via video content and image rights, so by creating synergy I can create revenue,” he says. “In the end, everything is connected.” He additionally freely admits that the funding, which was introduced in May, was made figuring out the outstanding quantity of curiosity in U.S. soccer and Miami that was to come back following Lionel Messi’s transfer to the town’s different membership, the David Beckham-owned Inter Miami (“Although being called Miami FC, I think we have the better brand”). 

Even the Mercato meals markets he says have been synergized — “I converted them so at night they become like production studios for documentaries.” With a deal with tales associated to meals and tradition, one such creation is the upcoming docu-series The Unknown Chefs, about 4 refugees as they arrange meals companies within the U.Okay. and being produced by Iervolino and British music producer David Tickle. 

And, within the to not distant future, there’s area. Outside of the problems of really getting there, Iervolino says his idea is “very easy,” basically a actuality present following individuals as they practice to develop into each MMA fighters and astronauts. While it could sound far-fetched now, he’s assured such ideas will develop into the “new normality — everybody will be doing it.”

Surely as creator and producer on Galactic Combat, when the technical points have been ironed out and it’s able to launch, Iervolino will have to be in rocket for its first journey to his intergalactic studio

“I’ll go if there are enough seats,” he says, 

Until then, a seat on the Palazzo del Cinema for the world premiere of Ferrari must do.