Today we got our first look at PlayStation Studio’s Gran Turismo movie in a trailer which shows off that the upcoming film is not a straight adaptation but uses the game itself to tell an interesting coming-of-age story where a Gran Turismo player gets the opportunity to go from playing the racing simulation in his room to driving the real thing on the race track.
The movie tells the “based on a true story” narrative of teenager and Gran Turismo gamer, Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe) who qualifies in the GT Academy competition where he plays the game which leads to motorsport exec Danny Moore (played by Orlando Bloom) offering him and other gamers get the chance to compete in professional racing. After a training camp with his trainer, Jack Salter (played by David Harbour) it sets in quickly that there is a stark difference between driving comfortably in-game and doing the same thing in the real world on the race track.
“If you miss a line in the game you reset, you miss it on the track you could die,” David Harbour’s character grimly says in the opening seconds of the trailer.
While Jan’s parents can’t understand his dreams of racing cars because “it’s not our world”, even with that lack of belief and Jann’s Gamer hating trainer Jann comes on top through sheer determination and successfully becomes a professional racer. This is where things are just getting started as his fellow racers are not so keen on Jann getting to their level which we’ll get to see more of the Neil Blomkamp-directed film when we get to watch the movie later this year.
The Gran Turismo trailer follows the recent teaser we got for PlayStation Studio’s upcoming series, Twisted Metal plus the success of the First Season of The Last of Us on HBO. The movie is part of PlayStation’s endeavour to bring their iconic franchise to the big and small screens with some other upcoming adaptions including Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War.
Gran Turismo is set to hit theatres on August 11th.
