Gran Turismo (David Harbour / Orlando Bloom) (August 11, 2023)

Sony seems serious about bringing its immersive games to theaters as equally immersive and story-driven film experiences. A sneak peek of the Gran Turismo movie featuring the first footage from the film arrived this week, and it looks to be about more than just adrenaline and race cars.

Coupled with an announcement from Sony's press conference at CES in Las Vegas that the game Gran Turismo 7 would receive a free VR upgrade when the Sony Playstation VR 2 headset launches, the sneak peek of the movie has quotes from stars Orlando Bloom, David Harbour, and Archie Madekwe about how Gran Turismo is made for theaters and how it features not only cars but drama and a love story. But how is it possible to make a movie from a game like Gran Turismo?

The Gran Turismo game franchise is centered around (you guessed it!), cars and racing, and doesn't have a plot or characters, so the movie interestingly uses the PlayStation Studios franchise by telling the true story of Jann Mardenborough. Mardenborough competed in the GT (Gran Turismo) Academy competition and beat over 90,000 entrants; he was rewarded with the chance to drive for Nissan at the Dubai 24-Hour race, and continued to win a series of Nissan competitions and become a professional race car driver.

Gran Turismo will be the latest in a series of Sony-planned video game adaptations: TV shows like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, The Last of Us, and Twisted Metal, and the video-game movie adaptation Ghost of Tsushima, to be directed by Chad Stahelski. Gran Turismo and Sony likely look to repeat Uncharted's $400 million financial success and continue to break the "no movie based on a video game is good" curse. We can't wait to see how Gran Turismo looks on the big screen. Vroom vroom, start your engines!

In addition to Harbour, Bloom, and Madekwe, Gran Turismo stars Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner, and Djimon Hounsou. It is directed by Neill Blomkamp from a screenplay written by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin and is produced by Doug Belgrad, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan, and Dana Brunetti. Kazunori Yamauchi, Herman Hulst, Jason Hall, and Matthew Hirsch serve as executive producers.

Gran Turismo will race into theaters on August 11.