Rockstar Games reportedly once turned down a GTA movie starring Eminem, which would have been directed by Top Gun director Tony Scott.
According to Kirk Ewing, agent and co-founder of virtual avatar app Veemee, a late-night conversation with former Rockstar boss Sam Houser almost led to the multi-Grammy-winning rapper starring in a movie based on the franchise.
Speaking on Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game podcast, Ewing recalled: “Because of the relationship I had with Rockstar and the relationship I had with Sam, I actually tracked him down one night in his hotel room where I knew he was would stay for a while. , and we both stayed up late and talked about the possibility of making a movie.
“That was right after Grand Theft Auto 3. And I think at that point, Sam still had it in his mind that it might be something he wanted to do.”
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He continued: “I remember getting a call at about 4 in the morning from one of the producers in LA with an offer to do a movie, and he said, ‘Kirk, we’ve got Eminem to star in, and it’s a movie. by Tony Scott, five years. millions on the nose, are you interested?’
“And I called Sam and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to hear this. They want Eminem in the Grand Theft Auto movie and Tony Scott to direct it. And he said: ‘I’m not interested.’
“At that point, they backed out of any conversation about making a movie, when they realized that the media franchise they had was bigger than any movie that was happening at the time.”
While rumors have persisted over the years about a possible Grand Theft Auto movie, nothing has come to fruition.
The Gamechangers, a 2015 film about the making of GTA itself, was produced by the BBC and starred Daniel Radcliffe as Sam Houser.
Take-Two Interactive tried to stop production of the film by filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against the BBC, but was unsuccessful.
The day after the film aired on the BBC, Rockstar’s official Twitter feed asked: “BBC, was Basil Brush busy? What exactly is this random made up bollocks?