Not every video game is an easy fit to become a cinematic experience. For all of the Sonic The Hedgehog or The Super Mario Bros. Movie successes there are out there, there’s surely a Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li waiting to be hatched. And then there’s the rare exception where real life provides someone like director Neill Blomkamp with a real-life story, like the one in the 2023 new movie release Gran Turismo, that offers a new way into bringing a gaming franchise to life. Which, in turn, allows David Harbour to roast a gamer for puking on "his lawn."
Sony released the first look at Blomkamp’s high octane biopic, which tells the true story of how gamer Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) parlayed his skills into actual race car driving. Showcasing a story that almost sounds like Rocky with race cars, Gran Turismo's trailer gives us a taste of the young man's life before and during the journey to make his dream come true. Serious determination, and good natured ribbing, all have a spot in this driver's seat; and it leads to Harbour getting one of the best moments in the trailer.
What we know about Gran Turismo also clued us into the all-star cast that joins Madekwe in driving this movie to the finish line. Both Orlando Bloom and David Harbour play mentors to Archie Madekwe's Mardenborough, offering inspiration and snark to drive the candidates enrolled in GT Academy. There's also quite a bit of Neill Blomkamp's visual flair present in this reel, as the race sequences look like they're going to be all time stunners.
Though we see some pretty gorgeous racing action, Gran Turismo is a rare bird in the fact that it’s based on Mardenborough’s true story. Much like Apple TV+’s Tetris, Neill Blomkamp’s latest project has taken a tale where a video game franchise links to a story that actually happened.
It’s probably the best way to adapt an open ended driving game of this nature to the big screen. What makes pictures like this special is the fact that reality was just fine for the team that brought Gran Turismo to the movies. All it took was a dream, a helicopter, and some David Harbour/Orlando Bloom squabbling to make it happen.
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In a sense Neill Blomkamp’s first trailer for his video game adaptation is bittersweet. Way back when, the District 9 mastermind was in line to make the Halo movie that never was, leaving one of the greatest “what ifs” on the table of modern video game movies.
Gran Turismo almost feels like a vindication, as he and his team have found a novel way to use an existing game franchise to create a biopic of real life drama. We probably won’t see Blomkamp’s Master Chief, and partaking in what he’s got in store with this lap around the movies just shows how much the powers that be lost out when that project collapsed.
While we sit here and imagine what it would look like if David Harbour told someone not to puke on his lawn in a full Master Chief suit, let's keep in mind that Gran Turismo shifts into theaters on August 11. For all other upcoming video game movies looking to make a mark on the movies, you can find that information pretty easily.
