Stranger Things Star Explains How Gran Turismo Movie Avoids Video Game Adaptation Curse | Push Square
Gran Turismo represents PlayStation Productions' next silver-screen outing, following the surprisingly solid Uncharted movie's commercial success, and it looks to be shaping up quite nicely as well. Archie Madekwe portrays Jann Mardenborough, the real-life gamer-turned-pro-racer, alongside Hollywood heavyweights Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings) and David Harbour (Stranger Things).
In an interview with IGN and director Neil Blomkamp, Harbour discussed the upcoming film, stating: “I’m really happy with the approach that they took to this because I think we all know, unfortunately – I mean, it’s just a thing – video game movies don’t work.”
Historically, this has been true, with stinkers like Max Payne, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed setting the unhappy precedent. In recent days, however, we've seen extraordinary things from animated outings (which could be the trick) like the Sonic the Hedgehog series, not to mention the worldwide phenomenon that is The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The reason so many video game adaptations fail, according to Harbour, «is because what we love about video games is that we’re the player playing them… we’re controlling the action. We don’t necessarily want a director and a team of people to control our point of view, to tell us what the story is within it. We ourselves want to carve that story for ourselves.”
The secret trick Gran Turismo has, then, is that it isn't actually a video game movie at all; rather, „it’s about a guy who played video games very intensely, and then took that video game experience and put it on the track. It really becomes, to me, like a great sports movie.”
What do you think about Harbour's outlook, and do you expect the Gran Turismo movie to live up to the
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