Since the tremendous success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Uncharted, and The Last Of Us, there has been a surge in Hollywood for films and TV shows based on video games. Neill Blomkamp, however, was initially perplexed when he received a call from Sony asking him to direct a movie based on their super-serious, hyper-realistic racing game series Gran Turismo.
Blomkamp said, “I almost wanted to read the screenplay just to understand what they were talking about because it just made no sense to me. Obviously, it’s just a racing simulator.”
Indeed, the Gran Turismo games lack characters like Italian plumbers or fungus-crazed zombies that could lend themselves to a straightforward Hollywood adaptation. Therefore, the movie’s script, written by the same writer as King Richard and Creed III, took a different and very meta approach.
Instead, it is largely based on a marketing stunt that took place in 2008, where Sony and Nissan launched a competition for top Gran Turismo video gamers to test their skills on real racetracks. The GT Academy took gamers out of their bedrooms and put them behind the wheels of actual racecars. Each year’s champion was given the opportunity to race against professional drivers on famous tracks like Silverstone and Le Mans.
The movie focuses on Jann Mardenborough, one of the GT Academy gamers who successfully transitioned into real racing. Hailing from Darlington, England, Mardenborough is a working-class teen whose journey is the subject of the film.
“I was so struck by this approach of it being a biography but also being a video game film,” said Blomkamp. “And that the video game would be an element inside that real world — the way that Gran Turismo exists in our world.”
Emotional Heft
Reviews for the movie have been mixed, with the Guardian referring to it as an “ode to product placement.” However, many praised the film for its surprising emotional depth, particularly in its handling of a fatal accident involving Mardenborough.
In 2015, at Germany’s famous Nurburgring circuit, Mardenborough’s car flipped vertically into the air and crashed through a fence, resulting in the death of one spectator and injuries to several others.
Although Mardenborough was cleared of any blame for the accident, the movie suggests that racing purists who disliked his gaming background continued to whisper otherwise. Considering the real Mardenborough acted as a stunt double for his own character, the tragic incident had to be approached with care.
Blomkamp explained, “You can’t tell his story without having that in it. It’s such an integral part of his journey.” However, the crash is also “super sensitive for Jann.”
While Mardenborough performed other driving stunts throughout the movie, the decision was made to recreate the fatal crash using “effectively 100 percent digital” technology.
This was partly due to the infamy and uniqueness of the crash itself, as the car went vertically airborne while soaring over a steeply undulating hill.
Blomkamp commented, “We tried to match what the car did, basically pixel perfect, from the video footage that we could find.” By using computer-generated visual effects (VFX) for that specific scene, there was no need for physical stunts.
Strikes and Hype
Another obstacle the movie faced was the ongoing strikes in Hollywood. The walkout by actors and writers over pay and working conditions prevented stars such as Orlando Bloom, David Harbour, and Archie Madekwe from promoting the film at premieres and junkets.
Sony chose to delay the film’s theatrical release from this Friday to August 25 and offered early sneak previews to fans in order to build word-of-mouth hype.
A Sony spokesperson stated, “The stars can’t promote the movie, but the audience can.”
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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