Oof! The upcoming Gran Turismo movie is a very Hollywood cliché
How on earth do you film a racing game? By not making a film adaptation of a racing game. The upcoming Gran Turismo movie tells the true story of Jann Mardenborough, a gamer-turned-racer.
For those unfamiliar with Gran Turismo. It’s a long-running racing series on Sony’s gaming consoles. The first game was released for the PlayStation in 1997 and was praised for its graphics, realism and wide variety of cars.
Gran Turismo 3: A Spec for the PlayStation 2
The most successful game in the series is Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec from 2001 for the PlayStation 2, which sold almost 15 million copies. We’ve now arrived at Gran Turismo 7 for the PlayStation 4 and 5.
Jann Mardenborough won the GT Academy
The upcoming Gran Turismo movie is about the so-called GT Academy, an annual competition that ran from 2008 to 2016. Simply put, Gran Turismo players could win a career as real drivers.
British teenager Jann Mardenborough became the youngest ever winner in 2011. He was 19 at the time. He beat 90,000 other competitors at GT Academy and won an entry in the Dubai 24 Hours in a Nissan. Mardenborough finished third in class.
Of course, there have been multiple GT Academy winners over the years, but Mardenborough is the only one to have made a career out of it. He drove the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship, among others.
From the director behind District 9 and Elysium
The film by director Neill Blomkamp – known from District 9 and Elysium – is of course a perfect fit for Hollywood. A Rags to richesStory of a talented boy who, against all odds, grows up to be a real racing driver.
Gran Turismo gets the Hollywood treatment
Though the trailer shows Gran Turismo getting the typical Hollywood treatment, with a disapproving father (in fact, Mardenborough’s father was ecstatic) and a skeptical coach (“If you make a mistake in the game, reset. You can die here!” ‘)
A love story would have been crammed in too (because that’s the way it should be) and the only one who believes in Mardenborough is Danny Moore, a Sony marketing executive (after Danny Cox, the real-life manager, played by Orlando Bloom). ).
Despite the presence of typical Hollywood clichés, we are still quite excited about the film. Because there seems to be enough racing action in Gran Turismo. The film comes out in August.