Gaming

Former Rockstar boss reveals why a GTA movie never happened

Former Rockstar boss reveals why a GTA movie never happened
‘GTA VI’ publisher promised Rockstar Games is trying to create “an experience …
Bang Showbiz - Gaming / VideoElephant

Rockstar co-founder and former head writer Dan Houser has revealed why there has never been a Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemptionmovie.

Fans of the renowned studio have wondered if GTA or RDR would ever make the jump to films; Jack Black has said before he's amazed there hasn't been any sort of adaptation for GTA.

In an interview with The Ankler, Houser revealed he had a number of talks with keen executives about doing a GTA movie.

However he said it would not have made financial sense for the company and it would have little to no control over what would be in it.

Houser said: "After a few awkward dates, we'd ask [the executives], why would we do this? 'Because you get to make a movie.'

"And we'd be like, no, what you've described is you making a movie and us having no control and taking a huge risk that we're going to end up paying for with something that belongs to us.

"They thought we'd be blinded by the lights and that just wasn't the case.

"We had what we considered to be multi-billion-dollar IP and the economics never made sense. The risk never made sense. In those days, the perception was that games made poor-quality movies."

But he did hint that it's something Rockstar could consider going forward.

"It's a different time now," Houser said.

Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1www.youtube.com

Houser shocked the gaming world when he left Rockstar in 2020 and later started up Absurd Ventures, enlisting the help of Lazlow Jones; the two had worked together at Rockstar for around 20 years.

The first release from Absurd Ventures has been a fictional podcast called A Better Paradise and Jones teased they're working on a lot of things behind the scenes.

Jones also said GTA's radio stations, a gameplay feature synonymous with the series, was created after a chance chat on a beach and he revealed how he wrote dialogue for RDR2, which is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time.

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

The Conversation (0)