Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to start your engines – a trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo movie is here.
On Tuesday, Sony Pictures released the first-ever trailer for Gran Turismo. In it, we can see Orlando Bloom (Lord of The Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean) and David Harbour (Stranger Things, Violent Night) help several fans of the video game series compete in real high-speed racing. Yes, really!
Believe it or not, Gran Turismo is based on the true story of professional race car driver Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe in the movie), who began as a fan of the PlayStation racing sim before putting his skills to the test for real.
Check out the trailer for yourself below.
The film’s poster was also released on Tuesday, and it’s got quite an eyebrow-raising tagline.
First poster for ‘GRAN TURISMO’.
The film releases on August 11 in theaters. pic.twitter.com/wtgFynnd7Q
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) May 2, 2023
“From gamer to racer” isn’t incorrect, given what the story entails, but it’s almost too meme-worthy – if you catch my drift.
Over on the PlayStation Blog, director Neill Blomkamp touched on how Gran Turismo incorporates many cinematic panning shots that ripped straight out of the video games.
“Well, it really came down to creating something that would just be cool to watch on a large cinema screen, and for that we doubled down on FPV drones to carry IMAX sensor-approved cameras,” Blomkamp said. “There’s a ton of airborne, high-speed drone work in the film, and we utilized a pursuit-arm mounted to a high-speed vehicle. In this case, we actually mounted it to an R35 GTR, which could actually keep pace (pretty much) with a lot of the GT3 cars in the film.”
“So between that car and the drone work, you already have some cool dynamic angles,” Blomkamp continues. “But, I was also obsessed with recreating camera angles players know from the game: so, for the third-person chase perspective, we built an R1 rig that could position a camera such that the entire car would fit within the frame.”
Gran Turismo hits theatres on August 11, 2023. The franchise’s rich history will likely be in Blomkamp’s film to some degree – perhaps even some tech we saw in Gran Turismo 7.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.