Rockstar reportedly rejects Eminem’s GTA movie
Rockstar apparently turned down a $5 million offer for the rights to make the GTA movie starring Eminem, directed by Tony Scott from Top Gun, it was revealed. However, the developer wasn’t interested.
Talking about the Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game Podcast for the BBC Kirk Ewing, an industry veteran and friend to Sam and Dan Houser, claimed that the brothers weren’t interested in a GTA tie-in movie at the time Grand Theft Auto 3 launched.
Tony Scott, Top Gun director, didn’t think Rockstar was interested in a GTA movie about Rockstar.
Ewing claims that the Houser brothers had discussed the idea of a GTA tie-in movie around 2003 when GTA 3 was released on the PlayStation 2. This was at the same time Eminem’s Marshall Mathers album was achieving great success in the charts. The timing was perfect, as the rapper just finished 8 Mile. He would have been in a great place to take on this project.
Kirk stated on the podcast that “I believe at that point it was still in Sam’s mind that it might be something that he would like to do.” The pair tracked Dan Houser to a hotel and discussed the possibility of a GTA movie. At 4 AM, an LA producer called with an offer to make the movie. He said, “Kirk, we have Eminem as the star and it’s a Tony Scott movie — $5 million on top. Is that you? Ewing replied. Sam called me and said, “Listen to this.” They wanted Eminem to star in Grand Theft Auto and Tony Scott as the director. He said: “Not interested.”
Ewing knows that this was the last time Sam Houser and Dan Houser had discussed a movie tie-in. Kirk stated, “They realized that the media franchise they had was larger than any movie at that time.”
Ewing was correct. The Grand Theft Auto series went on to be one of the most successful media franchises of games other than online casino games NetBet. It has spawned a number of sequels and spinoffs that have made it so the world is now eagerly awaiting any information on GTA 6. Take-Two CEO stated that GTA 6 was leaked in Take-Two’s earnings call. It won’t impact the game’s future development So we won’t have to wait longer than the team requires until we can play it. Not that we didn’t know when it would launch.
