This year is proving to be the most active yet for PlayStation Productions. Already, The Last of Us aired its first full season with a second already greenlit over at HBO Max. Not to mention the upcoming Twisted Metal TV show that is underway for release later this July over on Peacock. Additionally, Gran Turismo is set to hit theater this summer as well. The film was originally announced the same time as God of War & Horizon Zero Dawn TV shows as well.
While little was confirmed for the movie adaptation, it was later revealed that David Harbour (Stranger Things, Violent Night) would star in the upcoming film. Furthermore, the motion picture alongside the aforementioned TV series were said to be fitted the same attention as the previous Uncharted movie & The Last of Us TV series, according to PlayStation Productions head.
On Tuesday, Sony Pictures released the first trailer for Gran Turismo revealing an August release window for the upcoming film. You can watch the trailer in the video below:
When speaking to PlayStation Blog, director Neill Blomkamp explains his experience getting involved to direct outside of his regular sci-fi productions. “So, it’s actually a dystopian science fiction script I sold to Sony that started the conversation. As the pre-production process went on I started to get very eager just to work on something, and at that point they said, ‘How about Gran Turismo?’ My first thought was, ‘Wait, how do you make a film out of a racing simulator?’
“But I read the screenplay, and I personally own three [Nissan] R35 GTRs—I have a personal obsession with Nissan and the whole Nismo lineage—so I was immediately intrigued as a car lover. I’ve also been very close to video games in a lot of ways throughout my career, and I had never come across something like Gran Turismo where the movie itself treats the game as a game. It’s based on a true story about Jann Mardenborough who learned to drive playing the game before driving professionally in real life, competing against other real drivers.
“It’s just an amazing story. Another reason I signed on was because my stuff tends to be a lot darker and more dystopian, as you mentioned, but this movie felt, well, very inspirational. It had never crossed my mind that I would direct a movie where the audience would leave the theater feeling uplifted and inspired. This was really appealing to me.” Blomkamp also elaborated on how little intervening on the film was made from Sony executives.
One great thing is that there weren’t a bunch of executives who would say, “Well, actually, we think it should be like this.” If you’re working on another IP with a more established universe or narrative everyone has preconceived ideas about how things should be. But, with Gran Turismo, you have a well-known IP that doesn’t carry these preconceived notions about what its film adaptation should look like. This gave me a ton of creative freedom to just go out and, you know, make it.
Blomkamp continues on how he went to establish the connection to the series while creating a touching story that doesn’t break the immersion of being a video game film. “For one, the film tries to take you along the journey of someone who first experienced these legendary tracks virtually, and then took what they learned within a simulation and applied it to a real-life scenario. And so, I tried to visually connect those two points together using a lot of the imagery from the GT games, like the lines you’d take driving the track and the markers and checkpoints, as well as the awards for leveling up and things like that.
“And then there are a whole bunch of smaller easter eggs—tiny moments like recreating some of the in-game victory poses that we got our actors to do in the movie. There’s also a ton of cool cars for gearheads to spot as well; we did our best to drop interesting cars all over the place whenever we could.”
What are most interested from the first look at the Gran Turismo trailer?
Gran Turismo hits theaters sometime in August 2023.
Source: PlayStation Blog