Gran Turismo movie gets Philippines cinema release date

After getting its first official trailer a few months ago, Columbia Pictures announced that the Gran Turismo movie is coming to cinemas in the Philippines at the end of August 2023.

In case you missed its reveal, this upcoming live-action movie is based on the hit PlayStation driving sim series, Gran Turismo. It is the next project in PlayStation Productions following titles such as the Uncharted movie and HBO’s The Last of Us.

Check out the trailer for the film here:

Along with the film’s PH release, Columbia Pictures also shared some interesting details about the movie from its director Neil Blomkamp (of District 9 and Elysium fame). Specifically, Blomkamp said that while it was tempting to go digital when shooting the racing scenes, he and the production team decided to film the cars and the racing for real.

Regarding filming, Blomkamp said:

“With a movie like this one, sometimes the temptation is to go all-digital. Shoot some background plates, do digital cars, drop your actors in from a virtual production environment. But in this case, everything is real, and I mean literally everything is real. When we portray an actor driving the car, they are actually going around the track pretty close to the speed that they should be going.”

The film’s racing scenes were filmed in iconic tracks such as the Nurburgring, the Red Bull Ring in Austria, and the Hungaroring. And behind the wheel is Jann Mardenborough himself — the racing driver whom this film is based on. To be specific, Mardenborough was the movie’s official stunt driver.

“The story is based on him, Archie Madekwe portrays him, and he’s the stunt driver who drives Archie’s car as the character based on him,” says Blomkamp. “It’s amazing – some very interesting meta thing happening there.”

Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story will be released in cinemas in the Philippines on August 30, 2023.