Sony Pictures has released the official trailer and poster for Gran Turismo, coming to theaters on August 11, 2023. You can watch the trailer using the player below and you’ll find the poster underneath.
Gran Turismo is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for intense action and some strong language. You can grab your tickets now via GranTurismo.movie.
Gran Turismo is based on the unbelievable true story of a team of unlikely underdogs – a struggling working-class gamer (Archie Madekwe), a failed former racecar driver (David Harbour), and an idealistic motorsport executive (Orlando Bloom).
Together, they risk it all to take on the most elite sport in the world. Gran Turismo is an inspiring, thrilling, and action-packed story that proves that nothing is impossible when you’re fueled from within.
Based on the PlayStation Studios video game, the adaptation also stars Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner, and Djimon Hounsou.
The movie was directed by Neill Blomkamp, whose credits include District 9, Elysium, Chappie, and Demonic. The script was written by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin from a story by Hall and Alex Tse.
The film was produced by Doug Belgrad, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Dana Brunetti. The executive producers are Matthew Hirsch, Jason Hall, Kazunori Yamauchi, and Hermen Hulst.
The PlayStation Blog previously talked to director Neill Blomkamp about what brought him on board. “I read the screenplay, and I personally own three [Nissan] R35 GTRs — I have a personal obsession with Nissan and the whole Nismo lineage –so I was immediately intrigued as a car lover,” he said.
Blomkamp continued: “I’ve also been very close to video games in a lot of ways throughout my career, and I had never come across something like Gran Turismo where the movie itself treats the game as a game. It’s based on a true story about Jann Mardenborough who learned to drive playing the game before driving professionally in real life, competing against other real drivers. It’s just an amazing story.”
“Another reason I signed on was because my stuff tends to be a lot darker and more dystopian, as you mentioned, but this movie felt, well, very inspirational. It had never crossed my mind that I would direct a movie where the audience would leave the theater feeling uplifted and inspired. This was really appealing to me.”
The filmmaker also commented on what it was like working within an IP like Gran Turismo. “One great thing is that there weren’t a bunch of executives who would say, ‘Well, actually, we think it should be like this.’ If you’re working on another IP with a more established universe or narrative everyone has preconceived ideas about how things should be.
“But, with Gran Turismo, you have a well-known IP that doesn’t carry these preconceived notions about what its film adaptation should look like. This gave me a ton of creative freedom to just go out and, you know, make it.”
So without an established plotline to draw on, how did he pay homage to the game? “The film tries to take you along the journey of someone who first experienced these legendary tracks virtually, and then took what they learned within a simulation and applied it to a real-life scenario. And so, I tried to visually connect those two points together using a lot of the imagery from the GT games, like the lines you’d take driving the track and the markers and checkpoints, as well as the awards for leveling up and things like that.
“And then there are a whole bunch of smaller easter eggs – tiny moments like recreating some of the in-game victory poses that we got our actors to do in the movie. There’s also a ton of cool cars for gearheads to spot as well; we did our best to drop interesting cars all over the place whenever we could.”
Mirko Parlevliet has been reporting on the entertainment industry since 1998 and founded Vital Thrills in 2018 to cover the latest news on streaming, movies, TV, and video games.