Grand Theft Auto movie offers not 'worth risking one's crown jewels'

Given that Grand Theft Auto games increasingly are love letters to crime movies, it is a little curious that we haven't seen Hollywood tackle GTA yet. We've already been cursed with Dead or Alive and Postal movies, after all, and Rockstar clearly aches to be taken seriously. The problem, series writer Dan Houser has said, is that no one's made a good enough offer.

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Given that Grand Theft Auto games increasingly are love letters to crime movies, it is a little curious that we haven't seen Hollywood tackle GTA yet. We've already been cursed with Dead or Alive and Postal movies, after all, and Rockstar clearly aches to be taken seriously. The problem, series writer Dan Houser has said, is that no one's made a good enough offer.

"The money's never been close to be worth risking one's crown jewels," Houser told OXM.

Our small dabblings with Hollywood have always left us running back to games. The freedom we have to do what we want creatively is of enormous value. The second you go near Hollywood, people seem willing, or have been forced, to lose a lot of that control. That sort of amorphous 'that won't test well' attitude is exactly how we don't work. We've always tried to think of stuff that's innovative and new, and to go into a world where that's not encouraged would be horrible.

It sounds fair enough. Churning out a movie might make a few bucks, but could harm Take-Two's cash cow franchise. How terrible it would be if the movie's makers referenced the wrong movies, forced in awful love interests, or failed to establish the right tone and turned GTA into a absurd contradiction of hollow characters, tedious melodrama, and cartoonish mass murder.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 9, 2013 6:20 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Grand Theft Auto movie offers not 'worth risking one's crown jewels'.

    Given that Grand Theft Auto games increasingly are love letters to crime movies, it is a little curious that we haven't seen Hollywood tackle GTA yet. We've already been cursed with Dead or Alive and Postal movies, after all, and Rockstar clearly aches to be taken seriously. The problem, series writer Dan Houser has said, is that no one's made a good enough offer.

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      September 9, 2013 6:29 AM

      I love that they're so protective of the IP, and i'm having a hard time envisioning a movie that wouldn't feel like a cheap cash in on the GTA name. Rockstar apparently feels the same.

      I can't think of another series of games with such consistent quality and a reputation for improving with each successive release.

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      September 9, 2013 7:22 AM

      Dont need a GTA movie, there is already enough car theft, hooker shooting movies out there =p

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      September 9, 2013 7:23 AM

      [deleted]

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      September 9, 2013 7:28 AM

      Mario Brothers and DOUBLE DRAGON were crappy game movies.... Postal wasent so bad if you dont take it too seriously

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      September 9, 2013 8:12 AM

      They can't. They have an agreement with Ron Howard to use the name, of his movie for video games, as long as they don't try and make a movie about it. I do not know the specifics, like if there is an actual contract agreement or if it is a gentleman's agreement, but this is the stated reason whenever people ask Rockstar about it in the past.

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        September 9, 2013 9:45 AM

        There's that too, but we all know that they could hash all that out with a lot of money changing and dick waving.

        Same way Apple Corps, owner of Apple Records, sued Apple Computer, and the settlement was that the two parties were fine so long as Apple Corps never got in the computer business and Apple Computer never got in the music business.

        Of course Apple Computer did get into the music industry, first with the iPod and then with the iTunes Music Store, so they got sued again.

        Many millions of dollars and dick waving later the two made nice, as evidenced by Apple's exclusive carrying of the digital versions of the Beatles albums.

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      September 9, 2013 9:50 AM

      I don't see a way it could be turned into a movie very well. GTA has never really had an amazing overarching storyline; it's more about the sub-events throughout that make up the whole. If anything, it would make for a better TV series on one of the premiere cable channels, with various storylines going on throughout Liberty City and Los Santos.

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      September 9, 2013 10:14 AM

      Choose your own adventure movie.

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      September 9, 2013 10:29 AM

      I don't get it. There's nothing about the story of GTA games that would make it anything more than a generic, dime-a-dozen crime film of the kind already put out by Hollywood. GTA works because of the medium--interactive video game--not because of the story. Just leave it as a video game where it actually *is* unique (because of its scope, attention to detail, etc.).

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      September 9, 2013 11:02 AM

      I read today the map of GTAV is going to be 50 sq miles. Holy fuck!!!!

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        September 9, 2013 11:39 AM

        The game is a week out and still no real look at the map?

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          September 9, 2013 11:58 AM

          I don't want to see it, I want to experience it!!!

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            September 9, 2013 1:19 PM

            Eh, personally interested in the size of city vs countryside as well as street size & city density. I can still look at the map for GTA4 and not know what is where and how it fits unless I'm actually in the game and experiencing it. Basic lines on a 2D image is too abstract without the context. Plus the game itself includes a map, both in game digital form and out in physical.

            I'm guessing 50sq miles includes all the ocean stuff. The landmass itself won't be that huge.

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            September 9, 2013 1:21 PM

            fuckin right brother!

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          September 9, 2013 1:16 PM

          Of course there is: http://chattypics.com/files/2323_omcje72cmx.jpg

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