The Grand Theft Auto series is undeniably one of the biggest and most influential video game franchises around. Therefore, it’s actually baffling that there hasn’t been a movie yet. Especially with a sixth Resident Evil movie coming up. Guess what? Now there are actual plans for a British production, but the budget is not going to be in the 100 million dollar range. Probably not even in the 50 million dollar range. Wait, what? And Daniel Radcliffe is set to star?
Obviously, it’s not going to be an adaptation of GTA, GTA 2, GTA III, GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas, GTA IV, GTA V, or any of the expansions. They’re not even going for any of the game’s core mechanics, so don’t expect to see carjackings, shootouts and elaborate heists. Radcliffe is in negotiations to play the British co-founder of Rockstar Games, Sam Houser, in a legal drama. The movie will focus on how both his company and publisher Take-Two dealt with the rather infamous activist attorney Jack Thompson. Thompson repeatedly tried to make anyone involved in creating or selling the games responsible for murders by teenagers who had played the video games. Owen Harris is set direct a script by James Wood. Yeah, that is presumably going to be such an exciting movie.
But what video game adaptations are actually in development?
- Assassin’s Creed 3D, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard (December 2016)
- Asteroids, produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura
- Dead Space, produced by Fast & Furious series producer Neil H. Moritz
- Deus Ex has Scott Derrickson attached to it
- Halo gets a Steven Spielberg produced TV series for Showtime (Fall 2015)
- Hitman: Agent 47 (trailer), starring Rupert Friend and Zachary Quinto (August 2015)
- Metal Gear Solid has just recently landed a new scribe
- Minecraft: the Lego Movie producers recently hired Shawn Levy to direct
- Need for Speed is getting a sequel due to interests of Chinese investors
- the aforementioned Resident Evil: The Final Chapter 3D, again starring Milla Jovovich
- Space Invaders, developed by Akiva Goldsman
- The Last of Us will be produced by Sam Raimi
- Tomb Raider reboot written by Evan Daugherty
- Uncharted is being written by Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal
- Warcraft 3D, Dunan Jones’s big budget adaptation (March 2016)
There have also been plans for adaptations of Dead Island, Thief, Tetris, Ghost Recon, Heavy Rain and Gran Turismo. Eventually, most of these projects will probably never come to fruition. Unless two or more video game adaptations manage to escape the stigma of “video game movies can’t ever be good” with solid box office grosses of 500 million dollars and upwards, studios will continue to hesitate.
Is there anything you would like to see on the big screen? Me, I would have killed to see Gore Verbinski’s BioShock.
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