Gran Turismo represents PlayStation Productions' next silver-screen outing, following the surprisingly solid Uncharted movie's commercial success, and it looks to be shaping up quite nicely as well. Archie Madekwe portrays Jann Mardenborough, the real-life gamer-turned-pro-racer, alongside Hollywood heavyweights Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings) and David Harbour (Stranger Things).
In an interview with IGN and director Neil Blomkamp, Harbour discussed the upcoming film, stating: “I’m really happy with the approach that they took to this because I think we all know, unfortunately – I mean, it’s just a thing – video game movies don’t work.”
Historically, this has been true, with stinkers like Max Payne, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed setting the unhappy precedent. In recent days, however, we've seen extraordinary things from animated outings (which could be the trick) like the Sonic the Hedgehog series, not to mention the worldwide phenomenon that is The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The reason so many video game adaptations fail, according to Harbour, "is because what we love about video games is that we’re the player playing them… we’re controlling the action. We don’t necessarily want a director and a team of people to control our point of view, to tell us what the story is within it. We ourselves want to carve that story for ourselves.”
The secret trick Gran Turismo has, then, is that it isn't actually a video game movie at all; rather, "it’s about a guy who played video games very intensely, and then took that video game experience and put it on the track. It really becomes, to me, like a great sports movie.”
What do you think about Harbour's outlook, and do you expect the Gran Turismo movie to live up to the hype? Race on down to the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 21
The guy who's in the movie is saying the movie is good? No way!
David Harbour is overrated and annoying imo. I still hope the movie turns out good though.
He says that but then both Sonic films are solid and fun, Mario is pretty damn fun, The Last of Us was pretty great, Cyberpunk was incredible, Arcane was incredible, Pokemon is one of the biggest animes ever, Detective Pikachu is pretty good and the original Mortal Kombat film while cheesy is a good time to the point MK11 paid homage to it with the film even liked by the MK creators.
I can't say GT looks good as it looks insanely generic and while i like Harbor his track record of films is pretty poor.
@Pat_trick Exactly lol. Like obviously you don't want to say anything bad about the movie you're in or making because unless you despise the people you're working with why would you go push people away from the thing you are trying to make money from?
@Pat_trick he's not just saying the movie is good. He's making an arguably valid point about movies based on video games.
i'm meh about the gran Turismo movie, it's just going to be another fast and furious "action" scenario, there is nothing unique about the film, it feels generic and unnecessary to me, not peaked my interest 🤷♀️🤷♀️
I mean I see what he is getting at but his “great sports movie” and not a “video game movie” leans pretty hard on the trying to remind the audience about the video game
It all felt like very obvious marketing (it may not be their intent but it came across that way to me) 😅
Still its not really something special also the last Tombraider and Uncharted movies where fun to watch. But making a movie about a real life person playing a game and getting good at it so he become a racer is something that did happen in real life.
The Tetris movie is another example of a good movie that avoided the curse as well. it is more about the creator of the game and Nintendo bringing the game internationally during the Cold War.
Sony pictures youtube channel the official trailer currently has 11 million views in 3 days. Many big blockbuster trailers struggle doing the same. While this doesn't necessarily translate to potential huge box office numbers, it does mean there's a lot of interest surrounding it nonetheless
@naruball He is, but at the same time this is a project the he is directly involved and has invested a lot of his work into it. I'm not saying he's a liar, but he probably has a different perspective than the audience who is going to watch the movie.
First of all, to avoid the video game adaptation curse, you need to avoid the likes of Uwe Boll and Paul ws anderson. Also make sure the director and his team played the game(s) and love it. Then you have a chance of getting a watchable film.
There is no curse, you make a garbage movie it is a garbage movie.
Gram turismo franchise should have embraced the Cars movies. I bet load sof people would DLC lightning McQueen etc...
The video game adaptation curse is not a thing anymore. Are we really gonna hear this every time? We’ve had a lot of good movies and shows in recent years. Detective pikachu, sonic 1 and 2, sonic boom (the show), mario, TLOU, arcane, tetris and many more.
@Pat_trick Right? I'm always shocked when this happens.
When I watch the trailer it reminds me of the journey on fifa, It feels like I'm watching a story mode of gran turismo if that makes sense.
Make the cars destructible to differentiate from video game.
@Pat_trick Yeah, don't get me wrong, I know what you mean. I remember Bryan Cranston making a comment about the Power Rangers movie that he starred in (as Zordon?) and he compared it to one of the classics (don't remember which one). He expected it to be that good! It turned out to be far from it...
Still, Madekwe's point is different. He's saying that they're not making a movie like the video game, because that could never live up to the gaming experience. He's simply commenting on the direction they took and how it differs from other movies.
@huyi it’s going to be nothing like fast and furious ridiculousness 😭
@Mikey856 @huyi
If it's like Tokyo Drift but has Neil Blomkamp directing... an instant classic!!
Also if we are going to use a lame video game move to make assumptions use the Need for Speed movie as the Fast franchise at least has some redeeming moments.
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