How the most bizarre video game movie ever was made, according to its directors

In the world of gaming, there are few names bigger than Grand Theft Auto. Although the games have been hugely popular since their inception, it was the release of Grand Theft Auto V over a decade ago that took the series into the stratosphere. Most importantly, Grand Theft Auto Online gave the series new life, and it has since become one of the most popular games on the planet. Naturally, the game would be a good subject for a movie. Unnaturally, the aforementioned film also includes the works of the famous playwright William Shakespeare. However, here we are.

“Grand Theft Hamlet” is a new documentary from Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls, which sees a group of artists attempt to stage a full production of “Hamlet” within Grand Theft Auto Online. After seeing the film at SXSW last year and liking itI had the good fortune to speak with Crane and Grylls about how this unusual and wildly fascinating video game film came to be.

During the pandemic lockdowns of early 2021 in the UK, Crane began playing GTA with his friend Mark Oosterveen as a way to pass the time for two out-of-work actors. Then, sensing that there might be something interesting in their shenanigans – and for lack of anything better to do – Crane began recording his misadventures in-game.

“It probably ended up being just some silly YouTube videos or making a little kind of art film or something,” Crane said. “I didn’t know what it was going to be, but I knew there was something interesting in this world.”

Eventually, Crane and Oosterveen stumble upon a runway in GTA and have a lightbulb moment: Could they actually produce “Hamlet” in-game? They didn’t know, but they set out to try. What unfolds a) takes place entirely within the game without any live action scenes, and b) is one of the most satisfying cinematic experiences one is likely to have this year. The film did not get an early enough release To become one of the best films of 2024but it is locked to be one of the best films of 2025.

Crane started filming very early, which meant that he was able to document the entire journey that makes up the film. Even before Grylls took over as director, he had a lot of footage. They experimented, with the two actors even piloting a talk show about football (or football, for you in the UK) within the game. “When I saw what he was doing, I said to myself: ‘Actually, I think this could be more than just a YouTube video,'” Grylls said.

Once they settled on the idea, they had to find other actors to stage the production. They have incorporated other players from within the game, whom they only knew through the GTA universe. To say it was an unorthodox way to pass the time would be an understatement. To say it was a crazy idea for a movie would be an understatement. Crane had no illusions about the whole thing:

“Throughout this project, we tried hard to get support from big foundations, and most of the time, we got nothing. I can see why. It was a ridiculous idea. I mean, it was crazy. It was stupid.”

When it comes time to actually produce the movie, the game’s producer, Rockstar, will need to sign off. Part of the reason why a Grand Theft Auto movie never came out This is because Rockstar is precious in terms of intellectual property. Fortunately, the studio was very supportive of the project, understanding what Crane, Grylls, and everyone involved were trying to do.

“Rockstar actually knew about the project very early on,” Grylls said. “When Sam directed some very short films and put them on YouTube, and he was just doing the opening scene of Hamlet with Mark…it kind of went almost viral, and we got word through people we knew of the people who had worked because Rockstar had seen it and they were so tickled by it.” Sort of, Crane added:

“They never wanted to have any kind of control over it or make it their own movie, but I think they liked what we were doing with it, basically. It’s very clear that I think it’s kind of a love letter to the game in some ways.” “As much as it is a love letter to Shakespeare.”

The idea of ​​organizing any production within GTA is somewhat ridiculous. The online game is full of people who can disrupt the proceedings at any moment. It’s uncontrollable chaos, but filmmaking requires control. This is the baseline. So why do we choose “Hamlet” of all things to be a play?

“Partly, it felt like ‘Hamlet’ was the kind of play that seemed to fit the time we were in — this kind of pandemic and post-pandemic time — because obviously it’s a really existential play, right?” Crane said. The actor and co-director also explained that there are connections between these two seemingly disparate cultural works:

“What do you do when you start thinking too much? It goes along with this deep existentialism. I think a lot of people have found themselves doing that in the pandemic. And then there’s also the world of GTA. And the funny thing is that you think those are two completely opposite cultural entities, but I think that There are a lot of things that connect them. There are kind of obvious things about the game’s themes of revenge.

“I felt like in Hamlet it’s kind of about that — it’s about stealing someone else’s stuff,” Grylls added. “I also think that Hamlet is very much about layers of reality and people are not what they seem. I think that really suits a computer game, because when you meet people in avatar form, you think, ‘Who are they really?’ “You have the player’s name, but that’s all it is, plus their voice.”

In fairness, Some of the best movies about video games aren’t direct adaptationsIt is closer to video games. “Grand Theft Hamlet” is more than just a neighborhood game, but it also seemingly attempts to put a square peg in a round hole while strangers shoot you. That was part of the appeal. “Even if you’ve never played GTA before, you know what it is, or you’ve heard about it, or you have an idea about it. It’s the same with Hamlet,” Crane said. “I think it’s really interesting to combine these two things that I think are equally important and equally important culturally.”

“Hamlet seems to look at the world with this duality of wonder at the extraordinary beauty of the world and also a kind of disgust for human beings and how they behave,” Crane said. “That was definitely my experience playing this game as well. It’s very violent and aggressive and brutal, but it’s also incredibly beautiful.”

Logistically, since they didn’t use any live-action footage, Grylls had to figure out how to make a feature film set in GTA. It was a somewhat unusual task, especially for a first-time feature director. For Grylls, it involved just diving into the world and getting her hands dirty:

“I got into the game and started exploring the game a lot on my own trying to understand how it worked, but also the lights and how I could use the camera, and how I could start shooting things in a cinematic way. It started slowly. He built a way for the language that could be more cinematic and tell this story that was unfolding in front of us.” “.

Often times, video game movies are big budget. There are exceptions, Like Josh Rubin’s famous movie, “The Werewolves Within.”In this case, though, the team had to try to do too much with too little. “It was a really low budget. “We had no money, and we were literally just scraping by for our living. We didn’t know if anyone was ever going to see this movie, to be honest,” Grylls said.

Another big problem is the fact that this is an online video game where anyone can play it at any time – and these people can kill people who try to make a play. “There were a few annoying characters,” Grylls said. “That’s the nature of the game,” Crane added.

The filmmakers did their best to stay true to what actually happened, but they had to make some creative choices along the way to craft the narrative that appears in the film. The sound, according to Grylls, was the biggest problem:

“The audio was all mixed together because either someone else had a microphone that wasn’t very good or it was broken, because there were so many people in the scene that everything got mixed together. We had to do some ADR at times. That involved having to “To go back and try to say the things we said.”

When it came time to actually perform, it was really difficult to put the logistics together. This happened in multiple locations within the game, and again, they cannot control what other players do. They had to make sure the cast was prepared to return to their final location, otherwise it could delay things by 30 minutes or more. “Each rehearsal took at least an hour to get everyone to the same location to start rehearsing,” Grylls said.

“We were streaming (the performance) live, so people were watching it on YouTube and Twitch,” Crane explained. “Penny was the eyes of the river. So we said, ‘Please don’t kill her.’ If you fall, the river dies.’ We had to try to be a little careful and try to protect you.”

In the end, the performance of “Hamlet” was a success. Will it go down as one of The best interpretation of Hamlet ever, up there with Laurence Olivier’s interpretation.? That’s not for me to say. What is certain is that critics and audiences responded with near-universal positivity. “Grand Theft Hamlet” won the Jury Award for Best Documentary at SXSW. “We’ve been longlisted for a Bafta, for Christ’s sake,” said a surprised Grylls. For Crane, the tribute was validated:

“It just means that this thing that would have been just a silly idea that I had that no one had heard anything about, has now become a cultural landmark, and people have seen it all over the world and it has resonated with people. I think that’s the most important thing.” Exceptional for me.”

“It’s a pleasant surprise,” Grylls said of the response to the film. “I never believed I would make my first in-game (feature), but that’s thanks to Sam, who came up with this great idea.” Now, fans will have the chance to experience it in theaters, something not every movie gets these days. “It’s a film about community and coming together, so to see it find its community in cinema and people really embrace it was incredible,” Grylls added.

“Grand Theft Hamlet” is now in theaters.