Although there are still no plans in the works for a feature film based on the hit video game franchise Grand Theft Auto, the true story behind the game is another matter altogether. “Black Mirror” director Owen Harris is taking on a big screen adaptation of David Kushner’s nonfiction bestseller “Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto,” which already has Harry Potter franchise star Daniel Radcliffe attached to play Sam Houser, the co-founder and president of Rockstar Games. Today, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Bill Paxton is in talks to join the film as well.
On Kushner’s official site, “Jacked” is described as follows:
Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest and most controversial videogame franchises of all time. Since its first release in 1997, GTA has pioneered the use of everything from 3D graphics to the voices of top Hollywood actors and repeatedly transformed the world of gaming. Despite its incredible innovations in the $75 billion game industry, it has also been a lightning rod of debate, spawning accusations of ethnic and sexual discrimination, glamorizing violence, and inciting real-life crimes. Jacked tells the turbulent and mostly unknown story of GTA’s wildly ambitious creators, Rockstar Games, the invention and evolution of the franchise, and the cultural and political backlash it has provoked.
Explains how British prep school brothers Sam and Dan Houser took their dream of fame, fortune, and the glamor of American pop culture and transformed it into a worldwide videogame blockbuster. Written by David Kushner, author of Masters of Doom and a top journalist on gaming, and drawn from over ten years of interviews and research, including firsthand knowledge of Grand Theft Auto’s creators and detractors.
Paxton, who recently starred in both Nightcrawler and Edge of Tomorrow, will play a Miami-based attorney named Jack Thompson who repeatedly went after Rockstar Games, attacking the company for the degree of sex and violence featured in its games.
Featuring a script by James Woods, the still-untitled project will begin shooting next week.
(Photo Credit: Ivan Nikolov / WENN.com)
