Matt Damon and Christian Bale on the difficult road for adult dramas in Hollywood today

“Ford v Ferrari” tells the story of Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, two mavericks of the auto racing world who came together to help the Ford Motor Co. beat Ferrari in the 1966 24-hour race at Le Mans.

Directed by James Mangold (“Logan”) and starring Matt Damon as Shelby and Christian Bale as Miles, the movie is old-fashioned in the best possible sense of the phrase, an adult-oriented dramatic story with plenty of action under the hood. The story celebrates men like Shelby and Miles, while also showing the toll their passion and commitment extracted from their personal lives, while the movie itself features thrilling racing sequences.

Damon, Bale and Mangold stopped by the L.A. Times studio at the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about the place for movies like “Ford v Ferrari” in contemporary Hollywood.

“I think that it is increasingly rare, for every time there is another sequel or another franchise movie, that’s probably in the bandwidth one less movie about original subjects,” said Mangold. “There’s a lot of great stuff happening on paid cable and streaming, so it’s not like the creative energy has completely died; it’s just not up on a big screen anymore.”

Damon agreed the business of making movies is changing rapidly and that one never knows whether making movies like “Ford v Ferrari” will continue.

“We all, I think, came up on movies like this which were about people, movies of the 1970s with these incredible actors and directors, and it was just so exciting,” Damon said. “That’s what made me want to be in movies, so it was nice to make what feels now, I guess, like an old-fashioned movie.”