David Harbour To Star In Gran Turismo Film

I’ve made it clear on multiple occasions that I find the prevalence of these films based around games to be a needless endeavor that only benefits the film industry. The one that tipped me over the edge to write that editorial linked above was the announcement of a live-action Gran Turismo film, based on the Sony-exclusive racing series that has been around since the late 90s with Gran Turismo: The Real Driving Simulator from 1997. A few months on from that reveal and we’re getting casting details.

As the title notes, the Stranger Things star is set to take up a role in the latest loose adaptation of the games to film thing. The news broke via The Hollywood Reporter and provides more details about the film and how calling it an adaptation might be a bit of a stretch. Harbour, probably best known for playing Jim Hopper in Stranger Things, Elliot Hirsch in The Newsroom, Red Guardian (the crap dad) in Black Widow, and even Hellboy in that awful redoing of Hellboy, will play a retired racing driver teaching a teenager how to be a pro-racer.

Why is he teaching a kid how to drive cars properly? Let’s roll back to 2011/2012, and a young Jann Mardenborough would play what would be then Gran Turismo 5, eventually going on to win the GT Academy in 2011. Since then, Mardenborough has competed in a number of racing series, including for Carlin in GP3 (now Formula 3) against that year’s winner and current F1 driver Esteban Ocon, 2021 IndyCar champion Álex Palou, and Luca Ghiotto. That same year he would join GP2 (now Formula 2) alongside 2020 Monza winner Pierre Gasly, 2022 Formula E champion Stoffel Vandoorne, and regular F1 backmarker Nicholas Latifi.

As The Hollywood Reporter states: “[T]he project is described as the ultimate wish-fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won him a series of Nissan competitions to become an actual professional racecar driver.” Most recently Mardenborough has been a test driver and simulator driver for Nissan e.dams, the Nissan-powered all-electric French team that has since left Formula E following this year’s championship. One can only presume that Mardenborough is the inspiration for the teen turned racing pro.

The District 9 and Elysium director, Neill Blomkamp will take up the role as director, while PlayStation’s Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan will join Doug Belgrad and Dana Brunetti in producing roles. The Hollywood Reporter quotes Qizilbash as saying, “As one of PlayStation’s longest standing and most beloved franchises, it’s great to be partnering with Columbia Pictures again to bring Gran Turismo to life in an exciting way.” Writing the script will be Jason Hall and Zach Baylin, Baylin writing last year’s King Richard and Hall previously writing American Sniper.

Of course, joining as executive producers will be Hall and CEO of Polyphony Digital and creator of the series, Kazunori Yamauchi. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gran Turismo is set to release in theaters on August 11th, 2023. I can only suspect that won’t be the case as filming has yet to begin, and we’re now less than a year away from that release. As any racer will tell you, if you go into a corner side by side, something has to give, and in that metaphor, that tight date is the second driver.