One unexpected summer movie has managed to unseat Barbie from its throne at the top of the box office: Gran Turismo.
Since its Aug. 11 release, the sports drama has netted $20.2 million in the domestic box office and $56 million worldwide.
Filmed by District 10 director Neill Blomkamp, Gran Turismo is just the latest video game movie to hit it big with audiences. Critics may be granting it average to mixed reviews at best, but its story is intriguing enough that fans are showing up to theaters to learn more.
Gran Turismo follows Jann Mardenborough, a shy, working-class young man who uses his video game skills to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a professional race car driver. Archie Madekwe stars as Mardenborough, alongside David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, and Darren Barnet.
The tale almost sounds too good to be true, but is Gran Turismo a true story?
The film is based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, a 31-year-old professional racing driver who was crowned the youngest and third-ever winner of the GT Academy competition in 2011.
The GT Academy began in 2008 when Sony, the company behind the video game, teamed up with Nissan to train gamers to drive real race cars. The program uncovered hidden talent in a total of 22 gamers throughout its eight-year run, including Mardenborough.
The young video game player qualified for the GT Academy after competing online against 90,000 other players in a Gran Turismo 5 competition. The Guardian reports he ranked amongst the top eight players in Europe. He then made it to the finals where he trained at an intense week-long Race Camp against other finalists.
And he’s been racing ever since.
“It felt completely normal,” he told The Guardian in 2012 regarding transitioning from the video game to the real thing. “I’d never power-steered a car before, I had only ever done it in a game. I was controlling it just with the throttle and it was completely natural to me.”
Mardenborough revealed that he was first approached about the film in 2017, though he said he didn’t fully believe they would make a movie based solely on his career. Once the ball got rolling on the film – which had been stuck in development since 2013 – he played a central role in its creation. By his account, he spent seven hours on the phone with the producers and writers after the first script was completed, “going through line by line, word for word” to ensure its authenticity.
He even did some of the driving in the film, acting as Madekwe’s stunt double during filming.
The film includes some “deep dark moments” from his life, including a fatal car crash that technically occurred years after the events of the film took place. Viewers have criticized the film for its “tasteless” depiction of the real-life tragedy.
For Mardenborough, however, it was a defining moment that he wanted to be included in the film.
“It’s my life; it’s part of my story,” Mardenborough told The Sunday Times. “So I feel it would have been a disservice for the audience for that not to be in there.”
“I made sure all of us that were with the production — the producers, Jason [Hall] the scriptwriter — that that was how it went down. Because it needed to be correct, because somebody lost their life in this accident. And the movie does a great job of that.”
Gran Turismo is now playing in theaters.