The BBC movie The Gamechangers follows the creator of the Grand Theft Auto video game series (played by Daniel Radcliffe), as an American lawyer tries to shut him down.
Earlier this year we reported that Daniel Radcliffe had been cast in “that Grand Theft Auto movie,” which much to our regret wasn’t actually a movie based on the games.
Instead, it’s a BBC biopic tracking game creator Sam Houser’s three-year legal battle, when a Miami lawyer targeted GTA in his quest to ban video game violence.
The first trailer for the movie shows Radcliffe as Houser, with Bill Paxton as lawyer Jack Thompson:
There’s lots of juicy controversy surrounding this movie: In a beautiful stroke of irony, Rockstar Games (the company behind the GTA series) sued the BBC earlier this year, claiming that the completely unauthorized movie breached copyright laws.
However, clearly The Gamechangers is going ahead, although Indiewire notes that its legal problems might not yet be over.
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As the BBC points out in their official summary, “This drama is for an adult audience and has not been authorised by the producers of Grand Theft Auto. Rather, it is based on court documents and interviews with many of those involved in the real events behind this compelling story.”
The movie, which was previously titled Rockstar Games, is based on David Kushner’s book Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, which was published earlier this year. With a script by James Wood, the BBC Two production will air on September 15, at 9 p.m. GMT.
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