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, an agent and co-founder of virtual avatar app Veemee, a late-night conversation with former Rockstar boss Sam Houser almost lead to the multi-time grammy winning rapper starring in a film based on the franchise.
Speaking on Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game podcast, Ewing recalled: “Because of the relationship that I had with Rockstar and I had with Sam, I actually tracked him down to his hotel room one night where I knew he was going to be staying for a while, and the two of us stayed up late and talked about the possibility of making a film.
“This was just after Grand Theft Auto 3. And I think at that point, it was still in Sam’s mind that it might be something that he wanted to do.”
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He continued: “I remember taking a call at about 4am from one of the producers in LA with an offer to make a film, and he said: ‘Kirk, we’ve got Eminem to star, and it’s a Tony Scott film, five million on the nose, are you interested?’
“And I phoned up Sam and said: ‘Look, you need to listen to this. They want Eminem in the Grand Theft Auto movie and Tony Scott to direct.’ And he said: ‘Not interested.’
“At that point, they withdrew from any conversation about making a film, when they realised that the media franchise that they had was bigger than any movie that was going on at the time.”
While rumors have persisted over the years about a potential Grand Theft Auto movie, nothing has ever come to fruition.
The Gamechangers, a 2015 film about the creation of GTA itself, was produced by the BBC and starred Daniel Radcliffe as Sam Houser.
Take-Two Interactive attempted to halt production of the film by filing a lawsuit against the BBC for copyright infringement, but was unsuccessful.
The day after the film was broadcast on the BBC, Rockstar’s official Twitter channel asked: “BBC, was Basil Brush busy? What exactly is this random, made up bollocks?”