Rockstar reportedly had the opportunity to produce a Grand Theft Auto movie featuring Eminem in its lead role but ended up turning the offer down.
This piece of information comes from a new podcast series from BBC Radio 5 Live—Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game—that features interviews with rapper Bugzy Malone along with other artists. In one of its latest podcasts, the topic of conversation was the GTA franchise and its 25th anniversary.
With Kirk Ewing—video game industry veteran and friend of GTA creators Sam and Dan Houser—being on the podcast episode, he revealed how he once possessed the connections to approach Rockstar Studios with the idea, took all the preliminary steps needed, only to get his pitch rejected by the game studio.
Kirk said the brothers were offered $5 million for rights to a movie featuring the rapper in the lead role, directed by Top Gun director Tony Scott. He then went on to say that Sam Houser told the agent that they were “not interested.”
“Because of the relationship that I had with Rockstar and I had with Sam [Houser], I actually tracked him down to his hotel room one night… the two of us stayed up late and talked about the possibility of making a film,” Ewing explained. “This was just after [GTA] 3. And I think at that point, you know, it was still in Sam’s mind that it might be something that he wanted to do.”
Kirk said as far as he was aware, this was the last time that either of the Houser brothers discussed GTA coming to the silver screen. “They realized that the media franchise they had was bigger than any movie that was going on at the time,” Kirk said.
At the time, Eminem was at the peak of his music career, fresh off of the success of his record-breaking LP Marshall Mathers. He had also just finished shooting his semi-biographical film—8 Mile—where he played the lead role, showing his early life of getting into rap.
It’s no surprise that the studio would refuse such a risky offer, as the game franchise was doing well on its own anyways, with people lining up outside stores at midnight to be the first ones to get their hands on a copy of GTA: Vice City during that period of time.
“When I was growing up, Grand Theft Auto allowed me to immerse myself into a high-energy world and allowed me a freedom I didn’t always have on a day-to-day basis,” Buzgy Malone said on his podcast. “It is a gaming experience like no other and I know that feeling is shared by millions of its fans.”
