It’s already been a big year for video game adaptations, with The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros. Movie both proving highly successful. This summer, another major video game will get the treatment when PlayStation’s beloved Gran Turismo franchise hits the big screen. Directed by Neill Blomkamp, the movie will star Archie Madekwe and David Harbour. In the movie, Madekwe is playing Jann Mardenborough, a fan of the Gran Turismo games that ended up becoming a professional racing driver. Speaking with Empire, Blomkamp revealed that his goal with the movie was to put characters and story before anything else, though racing fans will also find a lot to love.
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“The north star for me was to make avideogame title with character work that propels the movie, even moreso than the racing,” Blomkamp told Empire. “Although the racing is bloody intense, too.”
Madekwe and Harbour will be joined in the movie by Orlando Bloom, who will be playing Mardenborough’s PR man, and Geri “Ginger Spice” Horner as Mardenborough’s mother. Gran Turismo will strive for realism in its depiction, and viewers can expect to see “real actors, in real cars, on real race tracks, driving insanely quickly,” as Blomkamp told Empire. A new image from the movie can be found in the Tweet embedded below.
On the surface, Gran Turismo seems like an unusual choice for a live-action adaptation. It’s not the first racing video game series to make it to the big screen, but attempts like Need for Speed have left a lot to be desired. That said, basing Gran Turismo on the real-life story of Jann Mardenborough seems like a much better idea than grafting the series name on to a generic racing movie! Whether that story will be enough to hook fans of the Gran Turismo series as well as casual audiences remains to be seen. However, if successful, it could be the next in trend of strong video game adaptations. PlayStation fans can see for themselves when Gran Turismo releases on August 11th!
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