An idea - Gran Turismo movie

Image courtesy of www.skysports.com

Hello you, my name is Luca but you can call me Luca. So I am well aware that my last blog post was also on Gran Turismo, but this isn't the exact same sort of idea because in this blog post, I'd like to talk in detail about a proposed Gran Turismo movie by Sony, and how it has the potential and the pressure to be a hell of a lot better than crappy film adaptations of video games that we have become all but used to seeing.

 

So when I say Gran Turismo movie, what springs to mind? If we are going off just the in-game content, maybe a driver who enters into some crappy sub 100 horsepower race called the 'Clubman Cup' before entering more races and eventually racing at Le Mans? Or doing a tedious driving test where you drive forward and pull up, and if the character fails then you hear a certain song by Yello? Yeah that sounds pants. A lot of non story driven video game adaptations do this, take literal elements from the source material that work as an interactive experience and expect it to work for a passive and engaged audience. This isn't the idea I have for the Gran Turismo movie.

 

This is something I know needs to be celebrated and made for the big screen, and I know a lot of you will be amazed to hear this, there are drivers who because of Gran Turismo have gone from sitting on their sofas with their PlayStation controllers to racing against all of the world's best drivers in a variety of different motor racing categories as a result of GT Academy. One such example is the man in the centre of the picture above, Jann Mardenborough.

 

Mardenborough entered into GT Academy during a hiatus from education and ended up beating up to 90,000 entrants to win in the European based competition in 2011, and has since gone on to be majorly successful in championships such as various GT and Formula Three series, winning a race in GP3 supporting the F1 German Grand Prix in 2014 and also in LMP cars at the 24 hours of Le Mans.

 

Coupled onto the other levels of success that GT Academy graduates have had, these drivers are the real deal and are here to stay, and when you also take into consideration the legitimacy that video game racers have garnered in recent years in mainstream thanks to the F1 eSports championship taking place last year, and one of the competitors being a former real life single seater from Turkey named Cem Bölükbaşı, who was signed to a team that two time F1 champion Fernando Alonso bought into, no matter what is said now about video game racers, they have proven themselves and are not going anywhere.

 

So with the rise of video game racers and competitive racing both translating over to real life and remaining within the games themselves, this is the topic and now is the time to make a movie out of this to show any old Joe sitting on his sofa that even a gamer could probably become a pro-racing driver and win Le Mans or the F1 world championship. So with this synopsis in mind, what to do?

 

According to GTPlanet, the movie might be dead which may or may not have been a good thing as of now which means someone with passion can pick it up. May not help considering Sony is looking to sell off its TV and film division, I still think something will fall into place to tell this story because whilst Sony were looking to make it a franchise competing with Universal's Fast and Furious as well as Dreamworks' Need For Speed franchises. I don't know how a GT franchise could work but let's just focus on a standalone now.

 

Okay first let's think of a main character. I'm going to be taking liberties with my idea, but have the main character take elements and characteristics from the real life GT Academy winners, mostly like Mardenborough though, mainly because of who I have in mind to portray this character. The person I'd like to see lead this film, much to the surprise of a chunk of you who believe I'm about to say Taron Egerton, I'm actually going with John Boyega.

 

Image courtesy of www.thedailybeast.com

Most of you know Boyega as Finn from the new Star Wars films, and I'm picking him because not only as we all know that he is one hell of an actor and a very charismatic guy, but also I saw an interview that he did that he apparently has a big racing rig at his home so he must be passionate about racing to some degree.

 

I'd like to see a character portrayed by Boyega as a working class college graduate a bit like Mardenborough who has maybe taken a few years away from education and casually competes in racing on PlayStation games such as Gran Turismo with his typical PlayStation controller as appose to a big simulator rig. His favourite driver could be Lewis Hamilton, since they're both Black British and this is what inspires the character's love for racing.

 

Another great thing that I'd like to see, Boyega actually told his Nigerian father about being cast in Star Wars and in a very strong Nigerian accent, his father expressed his utter delight and then asked what Star Wars was, so maybe Boyega's character could have parents who are just like that in regards to his racing. We could see some minor conflict in regards to his fixation on racing without any major aspirations in mind for his future, with the both of them hoping to see him take up a higher occupation as a result of going to university.

 

Just for the sake of not having to type out 'Boyega's character', I am going to think of a name for him which could be changed in the final version, so I'm going to call him Joshua Zuma and have him be a British-Nigerian with a mother and father who were originally from Nigeria and both moved over at a young age. So as you know these details now, you'll know I'm referring to the character when I say Josh.

 

Josh will be aged around early to mid 20's and be very much a Jack The Lad, likes his partying and hanging with his mates in the evenings, maybe have this over-confident side play into his character and development over the course of the story as it will work against him. He'll be an only child which plays into the flaw of not being able to see past himself, which he will learn when it comes to working with other people especially in the highly demanding world of motorsport.

 

Of course, Josh will have to compete with other potential candidates, and he sees when he makes it to the finals what he's up against, you could have multiple eSports and League racing champions ran by professional teams, with Josh being the only one who doesn't have any sort of major credibility or peak physical fitness. This would be an interesting point to see how Josh would react when he sees these people, making him realise he's out of his depth and begins to doubt himself since he came from a very casual racing background.

 

As far as inspirations go, the character of Josh for me would pull a lot of characteristics from both Mardenborough but also F1 eSports champion Brendon Leigh, the finger waving, impulsive and flamboyant Brit who performed an incredible last lap maneuverer for the lead in Abu Dhabi to win the inaugural championship. Leigh's very impulsive and unrefined approach to racing as well as his attitude outside the 'car' as well as his background not being in traditional simulators, makes him all the more appealing when it comes to the casual audience and that's why I have him in mind when it comes to a character like Josh.

 

Seeing the world of video games and how serious the motor racing side is through all these other characters who Josh will be competing against would be by far the best way to show off this world. I can already think of people who are already very established in competitive league racing in order to create characters for this story to appose Josh in the GT Academy training.

 

During the GT Academy events, there would be a panel of experts coming from the world of motorsport there to adjudicate the candidates, and I was thinking here we could have a fictitious British racing driver inspired loosely by 3-time F1 Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert. Having started his career at an age that would be considered way too old and being held back by an injury from a lower category of racing, as a result not being able to be as successful as he could have been and as a result, had a relatively short career. But still very much a happy go lucky character, I was thinking probably Mark Addy for this role.

 

Addy's character that we will call, Anthony 'Tony' Kemp will - as was the case I believe in real life - be in charge of the Brits who made it to finals as the competitors who come from a certain country will be given guidance from the judge who is from their home country. Throughout the competition when the driving, fitness, media training are all piling on Josh, Kemp will be there to help him pull through but will be put under pressure to not have any conflict of interest when choosing the winner after observing the final hurdles for all the entrants.

 

As far as the end game of this movie since Josh would end up winning the scholarship, he would end up on a Nissan racing programme and he could be placed in the All-Japan F3 championship and the Japanese Super GT preparing for an assault on both the F1 championship and an attempt at winning Le Mans, a baptism of fire. I don't know how that could fit into a two hour run-time, something like that would be alluded to at the end possibly a follow-up should this movie do well at the box office then it could become a franchise like Sony were expecting. Whether or not the main elements of the gamer to racer journey doesn't carry over into a second film or not remains to be seen.

 

Former Nissan Motorsport boss Darren Cox stated on the Amazon series 'Le Mans: Racing is Everything' that he knows one day, a gamer will win both the Formula One World Championship and the 24 hours of Le Mans. The unsuccessful attempt at heading up the Nissan LMP1 effort in which Jann Mardenborough as well as another GT Academy winner Lucas Ordóñez along with a bunch of other professional drivers tackled the race in the top class, in a very untraditional front wheel drive Nissan car, the programme itself ended before it had really got going and it was such a shame.

 

The sad fact is, the reality of the situation doesn't align with what I'd hope could be told but rather than base it on one true story that hasn't quite had its moment, instead base it around so many true stories both past and present in an attempt to make a mark on the future. The reality is, we can see now that this pathway elicits pure legitimacy and I agree with Darren Cox, that we will see a gamer in our lifetime win the F1 drivers title and Le Mans, we just aren't there yet in reality. I personally would love to see this dream recognised in the form of this/these movie(s).

 

I'd love to see how the first film does if they do decide to make a franchise out of it, not that I am expecting it to be such a hit that it would warrant a sequel but it would be nice. A definite nice change of pace from the competition, I'm not into the Fast and Furious or Need For Speed films, this sounds like it would be so much more my thing. Question is though, what do you all think? Feel free to leave a comment saying something nice about this whole thing, I do genuinely want to know what you all think.

 

Oh and if you're somehow reading this Michael De Luca, Dana Brunetti, Joseph Kosinski, Jon and Erich Hoeber, all of you being in charge of this movie, I know this can be good so pen a nice script Hoeber brothers and really do try with this vision in mind. Hopefully something materialises.

 

Alright! As for the rest of you, thank you so much for reading what I have to say. If you're new here and want to see more, either follow me on Twitter @TheLucaFormat or put your email in the 'Follow By Email' option if you can see it on the right hand side of your screen.

 

Hope to have you back here soon for my next blog post. So until we meet again.
Luca.