The new trailer for Sony and PlayStation’s Gran Turismo movie has finally dropped. This is the same trailer many of us caught at CinemaCon last week in Las Vegas, and it teases director Neill Blomkamp’s fact-based take on the classic video game. Like the recent Tetris, it departs from the standard formula in that it doesn’t try to adapt the video game itself but instead tells a fact-based story centered around the game, and the one they have for Gran Turismo is a doozy. Some years ago, Nissan and Sony partnered on GT Academy, which allowed champion Gran Turismo players the opportunity to train as race car drivers. One of them, Jann Mardenborough, actually became a professional race car driver following his training at the GT Academy, and this is his story.
Newcomer Archie Madekwe plays Mardenborough, with David Harbour as the professional racing coach brought in to whip the players/ aspiring racers into shape. Orlando Bloom plays the Nissan executive who hatched the idea, while Djimon Hounsou plays Mardenborough’s father. The trailer itself teases that the movie is a classic underdog sports flick in the vein of The Karate Kid or, perhaps more appropriately, Days of Thunder. It’s definitely a unique way to approach the material, and it marks a return to the big leagues for Blomkamp after a quiet few years directing smaller fare following his trilogy of big-budget sci-fi flicks, District 13, Elysium, and Chappie. He’s never directed a coming-of-age story like this before, so it’ll be interesting to see how he does with the material. One thing’s for sure, the racing scenes look top-shelf, and having seen this footage on the big screen at CinemaCon, I can tell you that it’s been designed as an immersive experience. It looks like they’re trying to do for racing what Top Gun: Maverick did for flying.
Gran Turismo hits theatres on August 11th.
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