Gran Turismo fans should buckle their seatbelts with the news that David Harbour is joining the upcoming live-action movie adaptation.
The Stranger Things actor has been cast in the live-action film based on the best-selling Sony PlayStation video game series Gran Turismo. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Harbour will play a retired driver who teaches the film's main character how to drive. While plot details are currently thin, it was previously announced that the upcoming adaptation is based on a true story. As the film’s logline reads: "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 race car driver." District 9 director Neill Blomkamp will helm this feature, set to work off a script by American Sniper's Jason Hall and King Richard's Zach Baylin.
Additionally, PlayStation Productions' Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan will serve as the producers for Gran Turismo alongside Doug Belgrad and Dana Brunetti. Game creator Kazunori Yamauchi is also credited as an executive producer alongside Hall. "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," Qizilbash said in a statement. "We can’t wait for audiences to see Neill’s vision of this inspiring true story of gamer turned professional race car driver."
The adaptation role marks yet another franchise for Harbour, who recently appeared at the D23 Expo this year to confirm his reprisal of Black Widow's Red Guardian in Marvel Studios' upcoming Thunderbolts movie. He also made an epic comeback as Stranger Things' Jim Hopper in the Netflix series' fourth season. The 47-year-old actor also appeared in Steven Soderbergh's 2021 crime thriller No Sudden Move.
The Gran Turismo video game series began with its first installment in May 1998. The racing simulation game series changed the genre forever and became one of the best-selling video game franchises under the PlayStation brand. The series remains ongoing, with its latest installment, Gran Turismo 7, released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on March 4, 2022. However, the newest game was almost immediately review-bombed on Metacritic for its incorporation of microtransactions
The upcoming Gran Turismo film will join several other video game franchises that have been adapted for the big screen in the past several years. Notably, the Uncharted film starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg performed well with critics and fans alike. Additionally, the Netflix series Arcane, set in the League of Legends universe, even took home awards at the Primetime Emmys this year. Other video game adaptations in the works include a Horizon Zero Dawn series and a Ghost of Tsushima film.
Gran Turismo is scheduled to hit theaters on Aug. 11, 2023.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter