Video: Gran Turismo film gets a full trailer ahead of August release

Following a short preview clip released earlier this year, the upcoming Gran Turismo film now has a full trailer for you to either drool over or scoff at.

Catch the video below, and jump into the comments to tell us what you think. As I wrote earlier, the film is based on a true story – but one imagines the writers have taken more than a few liberties with the truth to sell those box-office smash-hit tickets.

It's probably good timing for a new car film franchise, too, with the Fast & Furious series finally wrapping up...

January 2023: Gran Turismo movie gets its first teaser video

The upcoming Gran Turismo movie, based on the PlayStation game of the same name, has been previewed in a first short video released this week for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

The film will follow the rise of Jann Mardenborough, the third and youngest winner of Sony and Nissan's GT Academy competition in 2011 at the age of 19. For his victory, Mardenborough was awarded a seat with Nissan at the Dubai 24 Hour race and later moved into a number of other racing series' before landing in his current home as a driver in Japan's Super GT series.

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In the Gran Turismo film, Mardenborough will be played by English actor Archie Madekwe, who has so far had smaller 'that guy' parts in various TV shows and films – including the role of Kofun in the See series on Apple TV+, Courfeyrac in a BBC adaptation of Les Misérables, and the voice of character Sedwick in the animated Netflix series Love, Death & Robots.

"Based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, the film is the ultimate wish fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won a series of Nissan competitions to become an actual professional racecar driver."

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The preview trailer (above and below) reveals we can expect a romantic entanglement to feature – so it remains to be seen how closely the film will follow true events, but we'd have to ask Mardenborough himself about that...

Apart from the love interest, the film looks to be heavy on training and racing scenes, as any good big-budget 'hero's journey' film should be. If it's well-written and directed, we might see Gran Turismo become the Days of Thunder to a new generation of filmgoers and car enthusiasts.

Directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), Gran Turismo will also star David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Djimon Hounsou and former Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell Horner.

The story to here

May 2022: Is a Gran Turismo movie coming?

Jordan Mulach

The Gran Turismo video game series could be turned into a feature film, with Sony apparently keen to make the movie happen.

As first reported by Deadline, the recent success of Uncharted at the box office has boosted its belief in game-to-film adaptations, with Gran Turismo rumoured to be in pole position as its next candidate.

Although it's early days, South African-Canadian Neill Blomkamp has been tipped as the film's director, having directed and written District 9 as well as being a producer for other science fiction films such as Elysium, Chappie and Demonic.

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Despite being a Playstation-only title, Sony's Gran Turismo series is the second best-selling racing game franchise, behind only Need for Speed which was turned into its own film in 2014 – although the Aaron Paul-led film was a relative flop.

Polyphony Digital first released Gran Turismo in 1997, for the original Playstation, spawning eight main titles across five generations of Sony's video game console with over 85 million sales in its 25-year span.

It's not yet known whether the film's main character will be able to bounce off walls at high speed without sustaining damage, or if a large update will have to be installed every time before watching it.