LogInTop Gun director Tony Scott was also reportedly among the names attached to the project.
According to a new BBC podcast, Rockstar Games once had an opportunity to make a Grand Theft Auto movie starring Eminem, however, the studio turned down the offer.
Kirk Ewing, a games industry veteran, Hollywood agent, and friend of Rockstar co-founders Sam and Dan Houser, told the Bugzy Malone’s Grandest Game podcast that he was once in the middle of discussions between film producers and Rockstar Games on a potential GTA movie.
Ewing said that discussions among the Housers for the movie took place around the time of GTA III's release in 2001. According to him, the brothers were offered $5 million for rights to it. Names attached to the project were Eminem as an actor and Tony Scott, who directed Top Gun, as a director.
Ewing told the podcast that he once tracked Sam Houser to a hotel, where they stayed up late to discuss the possibility of making a GTA movie. Then, at around 4 a.m., he received a call from a producer in LA who offered to make a movie.
"I remember taking a call at about 4 a.m. from a producer in Los Angeles with an offer to make a film. He said, 'Kirk, we’ve got Eminem to star and it’s Tony Scott to film. $5 million on the nose. Are you interested?'," Ewing recalled. "I phoned up Sam [Houser] and I said, 'Look, listen to this. They want Eminem in the Grand Theft Auto movie and Tony Scott to direct [it].' [Sam] said, 'Not interested.'"
According to Ewing, this was the last time that the Housers discussed GTA coming to big screens as "they realized that the media franchise that they had was bigger than any movie that was going on at the time."
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