IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

GTA Movie Would Have to be Made by Rockstar or 'In Collaboration with Best Talent'

Posted April 5, 2011 by James Brightman

GTA is one of the games industry's biggest properties, and its gritty crime-filled plots could certainly be envisioned as films, but Rockstar has been reluctant to make that leap to the big screen for GTA or any of its IP. Why? Dan Houser told The Hollywood Reporter that Rockstar would feel almost compelled to make the movie, and that's a huge commitment. 

"We have explored a lot of movie deals, but we have just chosen not to make a movie. We love movies, but we also love games and that is what we remain focused on. If we were to attempt to make a movie, we would like to make it ourselves, or at least work in collaboration with the best talent, so at least if it is bad, we can know we failed on our own terms. But doing that takes time, and making games properly takes a lot of time. So, we may make movies one day, with the right property and the right partnership, but we have not found the time to do that yet," he explained.

Houser also brought up the elephant in the room - that is, movies based on games (and vice versa) are usually just not good. And he said that the whole transmedia approach to IP just feels like a cash-in.

"No one has done it very successfully yet. Virtually all movies made from games are awful, while many games made from movies are also pretty horrible. This will change, but with an ever more discerning audience, the goals of taking something from film-to-games or game-to-film have to be more than financial. If you feel the property has something about it that is universal or could work in another medium, and it is not simply about making easy money, then that is something worthwhile. Too often, however, the aim appears to be to cash-in on the success of a particular game, book, pop singer, website, etc., and that usually produces mediocre results," he said.

Even so, Houser believes its upcoming game L.A. Noire could be successful as a movie, if handled with care. "Well, we spent a long time being told Westerns were dead, then we made Red Dead Redemption, which along with True Grit showed that well-made classic Westerns have life left in them in any medium. The same could be said of classic Noir - a great film could be successful now, just as Chinatown and LA Confidential were long after the 1940s," he remarked.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.