With every huge game franchise like Uncharted and The Last of Us getting live-action adaptations, a lot of people are wondering why Grand Theft Auto is yet to get the Hollywood treatment. As it turns out, an idea was floating around at some point, but Rockstar Studios had opted to decline.
Talking to Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game podcast (via Eurogamer), insider Kirk Ewing had revealed that Rockstar Games president Sam Houser was once approached by a producer for the rights to a Grand Theft Auto movie starring rapper Eminem with Top Gun director Tony Scott at the helm.
Rockstar was said to have been offered $5 million for the rights, but they declined. Ewing explained:
“At that point… they withdrew from any conversation about making a film when they realised the media franchise they had was bigger than any movie that was going on at the time.”
We don’t know what a GTA movie could have looked like during the mid ‘00s, but some think that it was definitely a bullet dodged. Video game adaptations are notorious for being terrible, and some speculate that a bad film could have tanked the franchise if it ever released.
For now, Grand Theft Auto still sits on IP royalty, with an upcoming sixth game being one of the most anticipated in the industry today. If you ask me, GTA has always really been about the crime genre, and there are just several films you can watch that cover the same elements without having to connect to the GTA brand.
The way the industry works, a movie adaptation could be inevitable, but for now, the game series remains in the spotlight.
