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The ‘Gran Turismo’ trailer feels the need for sp– oops, wrong game

Gran Turismo
Sony

It feels strange to say this, but this feels like the right moment for a video game franchise like Gran Turismo — a longtime jewel in Sony’s Playstation crown — to make its move into theaters. Why? After all, it’s not like the Gran Turismo games are particularly well-known for having any sort of story. Well, take, for instance, the pandemic-era popularity of Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix, which had competitors scrambling to make a similar racing documentary series about any form of motorsport known to mankind.

Racing games, as well, are incredibly popular: When the tracks shut down, pro racers went to iRacing to hone their craft as an ad-hoc simulator (and secondary revenue stream on Twitch), and millions enjoy the Forza series on Xbox and PC every day. Finally, they’ve got a pretty good hook — how many video game movies can say that they’re based on a true story? — in the tale of Jann Mardenborough, a gamer who actually did cross-over from spinning a virtual wheel to steering a real one. And based on this trailer that Sony Pictures dropped earlier on Tuesday for the Neill Blomkamp-directed film, they might have cracked it.

Peep it:

Here’s a synopsis, which is about as short as you can get. We’ve got to wonder exactly why: Is this a prank to make people waste paper around the Sony Pictures offices or something?

“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.”

Gran Turismo guns its way into theaters on August 11. Let’s hope somebody finally makes that movie about the 24 Hours of Lemons at some point because we want to watch famous people struggle with getting a $500 car around a track for two full days of racing.