Why The GTA Movie Was Never Explained By Rockstar Games Co-Founder In Rare Interview

A detailed explanation of why Rockstar Games never pursued a GTA or Red Dead Redemption movie was given by the company’s co-founder Dan Houser. Mr. Houser, who created the company with his brother Sam, recently participated in a rare interview.

Spotted by gamesindustry.biz, The Anklet had to interview the creator. He offered some experiences he met with Hollywood executives about GTA movies and how he closed them. Plus, where the industries are going and what he’s looking to do with his new venture.

Rockstar Games had no control

Houser tells The Anklet (paid article) that he had “a few awkward dates” and would later ask “why would we do this?” They would respond with “Because you can make a movie.”

Dan, Sam, and co were smart and knew it wasn’t how they wanted to do it. Dan explains that “we would be like, no, what you described is that you’re making a movie and we have no control and there’s a huge risk that we’ll end up paying for something that belongs to us”. As the man who has had some of the most creative input into Rockstar’s games for over two decades, it’s no surprise that he’s lived through it.

Big risk and changing times

At this point, GTA and Red Dead have become multi-billion dollar IPs and “the economics never made sense. The risk never made sense.” Dan tells The Ankler. We’ve seen several video game adaptations but they were never really well received and it’s one of the reasons why GTA didn’t make it to the big screen. “In those days, the perception was that games made poor quality movies.” said Mr. Houser.

Although in recent years we have seen a change in quality and perception of adaptations of video games. Dan Houser goes on to say “It’s a different time now” and that he’s “ready to work with Hollywood” to “create an IP pipeline.”

Dan is back in the news more than 4 years after leaving Rockstar Games to create a new multimedia studio, Absurd Ventures. In the last few weeks, they released their first project and are working on a new open world action/adventure game.

The writer and producer of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption games has been working a lot with some of his former Rockstar Games creators building new franchises through different mediums. The team starts with podcasts and graphic novels before moving into video games.

Eminem was cast for a GTA movie

Back in 2022, we learned from former Rockstar Games developer Kirk Ewing accepted a call from a Hollywood producer. This was about making a GTA movie starring Eminem and directed by Tony Scott (Director of Top Gun). Kirk called Sam Houser about this opportunity, to which Sam responded with “not interested”. You can learn more about this story here.

Speaking of GTA movies, an 88-minute feature shot entirely in GTA Online premiered at film festivals earlier this year. It also won a rights deal. We have lots of information about this fun project here.

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