Sony will officially be releasing a Gran Turismo film in August 2023. Reports claim that the film, simply titled Gran Turismo, will be filmed this year.
If that isn’t exciting enough, the film looks set to be directed by sci-fi king Neill Blomkamp, the brains behind District 9 (2009), Elysium (2013), and Chappie (2015), and who is also involved with the upcoming science-fiction game Off the Grid. Along with Blomkamp directing, the film will also be produced by Sony’s Columbia Pictures studio. It has also been rumored that the screenplay has been left in the hands of Jason Hall, who wrote the war films American Sniper (2014) and Thank You for Your Service (2017).
We also have a plot description for the Gran Turismo film, albeit a brief one from Sony: “Based on a true story, the film is the ultimate wish-fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won a series of Nissan competitions to become an actual professional race car driver.” We bet that’s not the storyline you had envisioned. The automatic thought would be to think of a classic cross-country racing story, but they are played out and this could breathe new life into a racing genre.
This “based on a true story” claim could suggest that the film will be based on the GT Academy contest, a contest that was created by Nissan and Sony between 2008 and 2016. It was a unique competition in that the prize was a place in Nissan’s Driver Development Programme – we don’t know what the age requirement was, but you’d better believe there were some kids trying to enter so they could get behind the wheel of a racecar.
Sony has had a turbulent time in recent years with their films, most notably the lack of critical success for Uncharted and the Venom series, but this Gran Turismo film does sound quite promising. Keep an eye on this story as it develops.