ACT ONE
THE DISCOVERY
INT. HOTEL BAR — BANGKOK, THAILAND — 1982 — NIGHT
A sweltering Bangkok evening. DIETRICH MATESCHITZ, 38, Austrian, rumpled from travel, sits at a hotel bar nursing jet lag. He is a mid-level marketing executive for a German toothpaste company — Blendax. Successful but unremarkable. A BARTENDER places a small brown bottle in front of him.
BARTENDER
Krating Daeng. For the jet lag. All the tuk-tuk drivers drink it. Keeps them awake.
Mateschitz examines the bottle. Tiny. Medicinal-looking. He takes a sip. His eyes widen.
MATESCHITZ
My God. What is in this?
BARTENDER
Caffeine, taurine, sugar. Thai people have drunk it for years. Construction workers, taxi drivers, students.
Mateschitz takes another sip. His jet lag evaporates. His mind races. He looks at the label: two bulls charging at each other. Krating Daeng. Red Bull.
MATESCHITZ
((to himself))
Why does nobody in Europe know about this?
INT. CHALEO YOOVIDHYA'S OFFICE — BANGKOK — 1984 — DAY
A modest office. CHALEO YOOVIDHYA, 60s, the Thai businessman who created Krating Daeng, sits across from Mateschitz. Between them: a single bottle of the energy drink.
MATESCHITZ
I want to bring your drink to Europe. But we change it. We carbonate it. We redesign the packaging. We make it Western.
CHALEO
Why change what works?
MATESCHITZ
Because a Thai medicine bottle will not sell in Vienna. But a sleek silver and blue can — that will sell everywhere. I am not changing the product. I am changing the perception.
CHALEO
What do you know about beverages?
MATESCHITZ
Nothing. I know about marketing. Marketing is not about the product. Marketing is about the story you tell. And I will tell the greatest story the beverage industry has ever heard.
CHALEO
((beat))
What do you want?
MATESCHITZ
A partnership. Fifty-fifty ownership. I put in $500,000. You put in $500,000. We split the world.
Chaleo studies the Austrian. Then extends his hand.
INT. MATESCHITZ'S APARTMENT — SALZBURG, AUSTRIA — 1985 — NIGHT
A small apartment cluttered with marketing plans, packaging designs, and chemical formulas. Mateschitz works obsessively on the Red Bull brand — the can design, the slogan, the positioning. He holds up two CAN PROTOTYPES.
MATESCHITZ
((to himself))
Silver and blue. Slim can. Two bulls. "Red Bull gives you wings."
He stares at the prototype. It is the can the world will come to know — sleek, iconic, unmistakable.
Every market researcher I hired told me the same thing: the taste is terrible, the name is bizarre, and nobody in Europe will drink an "energy drink" — a category that does not exist. They were right about the taste. They were wrong about everything else.
INT. CONVENIENCE STORE — VIENNA — APRIL 1, 1987 — DAY
April 1, 1987. Red Bull launches in Austria.
The first Red Bull cans sit on a shelf in a Vienna convenience store. They look alien among the Coca-Colas and fruit juices. A STUDENT picks one up, examines it skeptically.
STUDENT
What is this?
STORE OWNER
Energy drink. Some Austrian and a Thai guy made it. Tastes like medicine.
The student buys one anyway. He will tell his friends. They will tell their friends. The word-of-mouth machine begins.
CUT TO:
ACT TWO
THE STRATEGY
INT. RED BULL OFFICE — FUSCHL AM SEE, AUSTRIA — 1992 — DAY
Five years after launch. Red Bull sells 100 million cans per year.
A small but growing headquarters on a lake in the Austrian Alps. HANS KNAUSS, the marketing chief, presents sales data to Mateschitz.
HANS
We are growing 40% per year. Austria is conquered. Germany is next. But Coca-Cola and Pepsi are watching us. When should we expect competition?
MATESCHITZ
Competition is coming. But here is our advantage — they cannot copy what we do. Coca-Cola can make a liquid in a can. They cannot buy the culture.
HANS
What culture?
MATESCHITZ
The culture of extreme. Red Bull is not a drink. Red Bull is a lifestyle. We do not advertise. We do not put ads on television like Pepsi. We sponsor the impossible. Cliff diving. Snowboarding. Base jumping. Air races. We attach our brand to the moment a human being does something extraordinary. You cannot copy that with a formula change.
EXT. CLIFF DIVING EVENT — ACAPULCO — 1997 — DAY
A Red Bull-sponsored cliff diving event. ATHLETES leap from 90-foot cliffs into the ocean. Red Bull banners everywhere. Cameras capture every heart-stopping moment. Mateschitz watches from a viewing platform, satisfied.
TV PRODUCER
Mr. Mateschitz, this is incredible content. Have you considered your own media company?
MATESCHITZ
I have considered more than that. Every event we sponsor generates stories. Every story needs a medium. Why should I pay television networks to show our stories when I can own the medium? Red Bull will become a media company that happens to sell a drink.
INT. RED BULL HQ — 2002 — DAY
Red Bull: 2 billion cans per year. Present in 100 countries.
Mateschitz meets with HELMUT MARKO, former racing driver and his motorsport advisor. On the table: plans to buy a Formula One team.
HELMUT
Jaguar Racing is for sale. Ford wants out. We can buy an F1 team for $1.
MATESCHITZ
One dollar for the team. Five hundred million to make it competitive. That is the real price.
HELMUT
Is it worth it?
MATESCHITZ
Formula One is watched by five hundred million people. Two hours of Red Bull branding every other Sunday. The most technologically advanced sport in the world. Yes, it is worth it. We will not just sponsor a team. We will own it. We will paint it our colors. And we will win.
EXT. RED BULL RING — SPIELBERG, AUSTRIA — 2004 — DAY
Mateschitz has bought and rebuilt the Austrian Grand Prix circuit — now called the Red Bull Ring. The facility gleams. The Austrian Alps frame the track. He stands at the start/finish line.
MATESCHITZ
A drink. A media company. A Formula One team. An air race series. A football club. A racetrack. People keep asking me what business I am in. I am in the business of adrenaline.
CUT TO:
ACT THREE
THE EDGE OF SPACE
INT. RED BULL STRATOS CONTROL ROOM — ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO — OCTOBER 14, 2012 — DAY
The control room for Red Bull Stratos — the most ambitious marketing stunt in history. FELIX BAUMGARTNER will jump from a balloon at the edge of space — 128,000 feet — and freefall to Earth, breaking the sound barrier with his body. Mateschitz watches from behind the flight director.
FLIGHT DIRECTOR
Felix is at altitude. 128,100 feet. We are go for jump.
On screen: Baumgartner stands in the doorway of a capsule. Below him: the curvature of the Earth. Above him: space. He is about to step off into nothing.
BAUMGARTNER
((V.O., radio))
I know the whole world is watching now. I wish you could see what I see. Sometimes you have to go up really high to understand how small you are.
He jumps. The control room holds its breath. Baumgartner tumbles, then stabilizes, then BREAKS THE SOUND BARRIER — a human being falling faster than sound. Eight million people watch live on YouTube — the largest live stream in history.
MATESCHITZ
((quietly, to himself))
Red Bull gives you wings.
INT. RED BULL RACING GARAGE — ABU DHABI — 2013 — NIGHT
Red Bull Racing: Four consecutive F1 Constructors' Championships. Sebastian Vettel: Four consecutive Drivers' Championships.
The Red Bull Racing team celebrates its fourth consecutive championship. SEBASTIAN VETTEL sprays champagne. Mateschitz stands in the back, watching. He does not celebrate publicly.
HELMUT
Four in a row. No one thought an energy drink company could do this.
MATESCHITZ
That is precisely why we could. Nobody expected us. Nobody took us seriously. The moment they underestimate you is the moment you are most dangerous.
INT. RED BULL MEDIA HOUSE — SALZBURG — 2015 — DAY
The Red Bull Media House — a full production company creating films, documentaries, magazines, and digital content. Hundreds of employees. State-of-the-art studios. A media empire that rivals traditional broadcasters.
MEDIA EXECUTIVE
We are now the largest action sports media producer in the world. We create more extreme sports content than ESPN.
MATESCHITZ
And every frame sells Red Bull without mentioning Red Bull. That is the trick. Do not tell people to buy your product. Show them a life so extraordinary that they associate your product with that life. The can is just the ticket to admission.
CUT TO:
ACT FOUR
THE FINAL FLIGHT
INT. RED BULL HQ — FUSCHL AM SEE — 2020 — DAY
Red Bull: 8 billion cans per year. Revenue: 7 billion euros. Two F1 teams, five football clubs, a media empire.
Mateschitz, 76, rarely seen in public, works from his lakeside headquarters. The pandemic has grounded the world, but Red Bull sales are surging — people stuck at home are drinking more energy drinks.
MATESCHITZ
((to Hans))
They locked down the world but they could not lock down the craving. People need energy. Especially when they are afraid.
EXT. FUSCHL AM SEE — MATESCHITZ'S ESTATE — 2022 — DAY
The Austrian Alps. A crystalline lake. Mateschitz's estate is invisible from the road — he has maintained near-total privacy for four decades. He walks slowly along the lakeside, visibly ill. He has been battling cancer.
I spent forty years telling people to live on the edge. To jump from the stratosphere. To race at three hundred kilometers per hour. To climb, fly, dive, push every boundary the human body allows. And now the one boundary I cannot push is my own. The edge of space was easy compared to this.
INT. MATESCHITZ'S HOME — OCTOBER 22, 2022 — EVENING
Dietrich Mateschitz dies on October 22, 2022, at age 78.
A quiet room. The man who sold the world on wings, who sponsored the impossible, who turned a Thai medicine into a global phenomenon, lies still. Outside: the Austrian Alps he loved. Below: the lake where he built his empire.
On his desk: the original Krating Daeng bottle from that Bangkok hotel bar in 1982. A Red Bull can beside it — the first and the latest. Forty years of flight.
EXT. RED BULL RING — SPIELBERG — 2023 — DAY
A Formula One race. Red Bull Racing dominates — Max Verstappen wins again. The stands are full of fans in Red Bull blue. Eight billion cans a year. Two F1 teams. Five football clubs. A media empire. And on every can, two bulls charging at each other — the image a Thai businessman showed an Austrian marketer in 1982.
Dietrich Mateschitz co-founded Red Bull GmbH in 1984 after discovering the Thai energy drink Krating Daeng during a business trip. He invested his life savings of $500,000. By the time of his death in October 2022, Red Bull sold over 11 billion cans annually, owned two Formula One teams (including the dominant Red Bull Racing), five professional football clubs, and one of the world's largest action sports media companies. He is credited with inventing the energy drink category and pioneering content marketing. His net worth at death exceeded $25 billion. He never gave more than a handful of interviews in his entire career.
FADE OUT.