Movie blog The Wrap is reporting that Sony Pictures and Fifty Shades of Grey producers Mike De Luca and Dana Brunetti have started pre-production a movie based on Sony’s most popular video game franchise, Gran Turismo. What could possibly go wrong?
According to The Wrap’s sources, Sony Pictures is eager to develop a movie franchise centered around fast cars in order to jump on The Fast and The Furious bandwagon. Besides producing the Fifty Shades of Grey movie adaptation, De Luca and Brunetti were also involved in the Ghost Rider films, which everybody loved… Actually, no, that’s a goddamn lie, everybody hated those fucking movies.
Apparently Sony Pictures thinks that a Gran Turismo movie is guaranteed to be a big success, given that the franchise is Sony Computer Entertainment’s most successful video game series: counting the 5 console sequels and the PSP spin-off, the series has sold over 70 million games worldwide. Of course, those Sony Pictures execs seem to forget that Gran Turismo is a game that features no story and no characters, so I’m not sure why they think people would want to watch GT instead of playing it. Don’t get me wrong: I like Gran Turismo and I’ve probably logged hundreds of hours into those games, but I can think of dozens of other video games that would be better suited for a film adaptation that Polyphony Digital’s story-less driving simulator. You might as well make a Tetris movie.
Sony Pictures isn’t the only movie studio that’s trying to adapt a video game franchise into a Fast and Furious knock-off, err… I mean, competitor: Touchstone Pictures is currently producing a film based on EA’s Need for Speed franchise starring Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul. The Need for Speed movie will hit theaters in March of next year. There’s currently no ETA for when the Gran Turismo movie will grace movie theaters with its creatively bankrupt presence.
