No offense to the cast and crew who no doubt worked incredibly hard to deliver the best possible version of the final product, but it’s hard to see anything other than disaster over the horizon for Gran Turismo.
The trailers don’t look particularly encouraging to put it lightly, with former cinematic wunderkind Neill Blomkamp now reduced to helming video game adaptations that seem to be about as paint-by-numbers as you’d expect from any big budget production ominously backed by Sony.
An August release date likely won’t do it any favors, either, with Gran Turismo sandwiched in between the likes of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Meg 2: The Trench, and Blue Beetle to name but a small few.
Undeterred, screenwriter Zach Baylin is aiming for the stars, going so far as to name-drop a pair of stone-cold classics as inspirations during an interview with Empire.
“We talked about how this story could have elements of Rocky, in being about a character on the outside of an industry, who has a real desire to not just get into a particular sport, but to prove something to himself and his family. We [spoke] a lot about the original Top Gun and that idea of a character surrounded by the best of the best, coming in to learn what it means to sit in these extremely fast vehicles. What it means to have to be part of a team. What it means to have to overcome your own insecurities and ego in order to pilot something that can kill you and kill other people.”
For all we know, Gran Turismo could surprise everyone and end up as the sleeper hit of the summer, but that would be one of the year’s most shocking developments given that even the biggest brands in the industry are flopping like flies.