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From a gamer’s chair to the driver’s seat! Gran Turismo is the story of a young man living out his racing dreams. Read this preview before you see it.
Get Ready, Get Set, Gran Turismo is Here!
It’s out! The Gran Turismo movie is playing in a theater near you (and after that, it’ll be available on streaming). We’ve seen video game adaptations before. Some, like Sonic the Hedgehog, have been bankable box office movies. Others, like Mortal Kombat and Assassin’s Creed, haven’t been quite as successful. This adaptation is unlike some of the others, though.
Gran Turismo doesn’t have anything to do with magical artifacts or superpowered blue hedgehogs. No, it’s a racing movie through and through. We’ve seen plenty of racing movies before, and we’ve seen movies that weren’t necessarily about racing that still heavily featured vehicles. I’m not sure if Gran Turismo will end up on a list of the Best Race Car Movies of All Time, but it already has a spot on our list of the Best Video Games of All Time.
Video Game Beginnings
Those behind the Gran Turismo movie would love for it to become a big screen summer blockbuster. It certainly has some stiff competition with a loaded slate to compete against, but moviegoers seem to be more interested in original stories than they are in superpowered superhero movies this summer.
Even if it doesn’t become the latest and greatest Hollywood franchise, Gran Turismo is already a successful video game franchise. Gran Turismo 7 was released in March 2022. There’s a lengthy list of Turismo games out there, the first being released in 1997. Some of the entries in the Gran Turismo franchise shifted the focus a bit from single-player driving to a more competitive approach. However, the games have always emphasized racing simulation.
The video game graphics have been a consistent draw, though, and they’ve continually improved ever since. There’s a large amount of detail in these beautifully crafted electronic racecars. That certainly appealed to players right away. From the mood-setting jazz music to the landscapes, the video games capture your attention.
If this movie can capture half the magic the video games provide, it should do well. We know that it’s more than just visuals and action, too. Gran Turismo is a racing movie with a lot of fast-paced track action, but it also certainly has an interesting story to share.
The Premise of the Movie
This movie follows a Gran Turismo video game player (it is called Gran Turismo, so there’s going to be some cross-promotion, even in the storyline) whose elite video game racing expertise wins him a spot in an actual race, putting his virtual skills to use. Archie Madekwe portrays protagonist Jann Mardenborough, the gamer-turned-racer in this movie.
Adding to the challenge the player faces, his trainer doesn’t particularly like him being part of the race. David Harbour, of Stranger Things fame, is the actor who plays trainer Jack Salter. Based on the previews, Salter runs a rigorous training camp to prepare several, “scrawny, little gamer kids,” to race.
Orlando Bloom portrays Danny Moore, the man who has faith in the kids. He recruits Salter to train the teens and 20-somethings for racing. Carried by those three actors, Gran Turismo seems to offer a good mix of action, visual effects, and story. What makes the story even more inspirational is that it’s based on real life events.
Based on a True Story
If the plot sounds familiar to you, it’s because it probably is. That’s right, the Gran Turismo movie is based on the story of real-life racer Jann Mardenborough. He’s not just a made-up character for the script. Mardenborough is a 31-year-old professional racer in the Japanese Super GT series. He wasn’t the first, but he was the youngest winner of Nissan’s Playstation GT Academy competition in 2011. GT Academy was conceived by Darren Cox, a former Nissan executive, in 2006. The purpose was to help Sony PlayStation gamers become racecar drivers. By 2008, the Nissan GT Academy became a reality. Lucas Ordonez was the first winner of the competition.
Fast forward two years and Mardenborough, then a 19-year-old with no previous racing experience, defeated 90,000 other entrants to win the GT Academy competition. With that win, Mardenborough earned the right to drive with Nissan in the Dubai 24 Hour. In that debut, Mardenborough finished third in his class. From there, he kept going.
Mardenborough competed in the British GT Championship in 2012, switched over to formula racing in the 2013 Toyota Racing Series, won his first GP3 Series race in 2014, and then raced in the Super Formula Series in Japan in 2017. That’s quite a progression, but it all started with playing video games and a once-in-a-lifetime tournament victory. Gran Turismo is going to tell that story along with all of the inspiration and drama that came with it.
Action-Packed Filming
Whoever was specifically in charge of this story did a good job when piecing all of the elements together. Not only do they have bigger name actors like Orlando Bloom and David Harbour and a promising newcomer in Archie Madekwe, but they also have an experienced director in Neill Blomkamp.
District 9, Elysium, and Chappie are some of the other feature films on Blomkamp’s resume. Blomkamp snagged award-winning camera operator, Jacques Jouffret, as his director of photography for this movie, too. This may end up being Blomkamp’s most successful project yet because it became a passion project for him. The true story nature of the movie and the way Gran Turismo was woven into the script was intriguing, but what really excited him was the chance to shoot high-adrenaline car photography.
Since Sony is involved in the film, Blomkamp used the Sony Venice 2 camera for filming. That camera uses the Sony Rialto extension system, allowing the sensor block to detach from the actual camera body. The tiny sensor blocks were placed in areas of the racecar where other films haven’t been able to get IMAX-quality footage.
The sensors are so lightweight that they were also able to be placed in a variety of areas on the exterior of the vehicle, areas that normally couldn’t handle cameras. The trademark Gran Turismo grille angle, a point-of-view inside the car, and a point-of-view angle from the back of the car were all filmed with Sony technology. Most of the filming for Gran Turismo took place in November 2022 at the Hungaroring track in Hungary.
Lots of Car Cameos
Just like the Gran Turismo video game, we are expecting lots of car cameos in the Gran Turismo movie. There will be plenty of Nissan GT-Rs, including the actual 2014 Nissan R35 GT-R that Mardenborough drove. We also know there will be a 370Z NISMO, a Lamborghini Huracan, an Audi R8, a Ferrari 458, a Porsche 911, and a Ligier-Nissan MP racer. Let us know if you spot any other makes and models when you see the movie!
Whether you’re trying to find time to go see Gran Turismo, waiting for it to show up on streaming, or sitting in the movie theater right now, waiting for the previews to start, we’ve got plenty of additional cinematic content for you to enjoy. View the Cars of the Transformers Movies or the Cars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, discover the Cars of the Cars Movie, our break out the snacks for our Top 10 Road Trip Movies.
