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

There are few names bigger in the gaming world than Grand Theft Auto. While the games have been incredibly popular since their inception, it was the release of Grand Theft Auto V over a decade ago that catapulted the series into the stratosphere. More importantly, Grand Theft Auto Online gave the series new life and has since become one of the most popular games on the planet. It’s only natural that a game would be a good subject for a movie. It is much less natural that this film will also include the works of the famous playwright William Shakespeare. Still, here we are.

Grand Theft Hamlet is a new documentary by Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls that follows a group of sharpshooters as they attempt to put on a full production of Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online. After seeing the film at SXSW last year and loving itI was lucky enough to speak with Crane and Grylls about how this extremely unusual but wonderful video game movie came to be.

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

“Maybe it just ended up being some stupid YouTube videos or making some feature films 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 Osterween stumble upon an amphitheater in GTA, and they have a light bulb moment: can they put on a performance of Hamlet in the game? They didn’t know, but they tried. What unfolds A) takes place entirely in-game with no live cutscenes, and B) is one of the most satisfying cinematic experiences to be found this year. The film did not get an early enough release to become one of the best movies of 2024but it is a lock to be one of the best movies of 2025.

Crane started shooting very early, meaning he was able to document the entire journey that makes up the film. Even before Grylls became a director, he had a wealth of footage. They experimented, and two actors even tried a football (or soccer, for you UK folks) talk show in the game. “Watching him do it, I just thought, ‘Actually, I think this could be more than a YouTube video,'” Grylls said.

Once they settled on an idea, they needed to find other actors to stage the production. They included other players from the game that they only knew in the GTA world. To say it was an unconventional way to pass the time would be an understatement. To say it was a crazy move for the film would be an understatement. Crane had no illusions about this:

“Throughout this project, we tried very hard to get support from large institutions, but for the most part we didn’t get anything. I understand why. It was a ridiculous idea. I mean it was crazy. stupid”.

When it came time to make the movie, the game’s producer, Rockstar, had to sign off. One of the reasons why the Grand Theft Auto movie never came out because Rockstar is a valuable IP. Fortunately, the studio was very supportive of the project, understanding exactly what Crane, Grylls and everyone involved were trying to do.

“Rockstar really knew about the project from the beginning,” Grylls said. “When Sam made some very short films that he put up on YouTube, just of him doing the opening scene of Hamlet with Mark… it went semi-viral and we got the word out through people who we knew were people, that worked because Rockstar saw it and they were excited about it.” Crane added:

“They never wanted to have any control over it or make it their movie, but I think they liked what we did with it, basically. Quite clearly, I think it’s in a way a love letter to the game, as much as it’s a love letter to Shakespeare.”

The idea of ​​staging any kind of production in the GTA is pretty absurd. The online game is full of people who can disrupt the process at any moment. It’s uncontrolled chaos, but filmmaking requires control. This is the baseline. So why choose Hamlet of all things as a play?

“Part of it felt like Hamlet was a play that seemed to fit the time we were in — this pandemic and post-pandemic time — because obviously it’s a really existential play, right? » Crane said. The actor and director also explained that there is a connection between these two seemingly different cultural creations:

“What do you do when you start thinking a lot? You follow this deep existentialism. I think a lot of people did during the pandemic. In addition, there is the world of GTA. The funny thing is that you think these are two completely opposite cultural entities, but I think they have a lot in common in the theme of a revenge game.”

“It felt like Hamlet was about stealing other people’s things,” Grylls added. “I also think that Hamlet is very much about layers of reality and people who are not what they seem. I think it’s really appropriate for a computer game, because when you meet people in avatar form, you think, ‘Who are they really?’ You have the gamer tag, but that’s all there is to say and their voice.”

truth be told some of the best video game movies aren’t direct adaptationsthey are more related to video games. Hamlet’s Grand Theft is more than just around the corner, but it also feels like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole while strangers shoot you. That was part of the appeal. “Even if you’ve never played GTA, you know what it is, you’ve heard of it or have some idea about it. It’s the same with “Hamlet,” Crane said. “I think it’s really interesting to bring these two things together that I think are equally important and equally important cultural artifacts.”

“Hamlet seems to view the world in this duality of wonder at the extraordinary beauty of the world and also a kind of disgust at people and the way they behave,” Crane said. “That was definitely my experience playing this game as well. She’s so tough and aggressive and violent, but she’s also incredibly beautiful.’

Logistically, since they weren’t using live footage, Grylls had to figure out how to functionally make a feature film in GTA. It was quite an unusual task, especially for a first-time director. For Grylls, it meant simply diving into the world and getting his hands dirty:

“I got hooked on the game and started learning the game on my own, trying to figure out how it worked and figure out lights and how I could use the camera, how I could start shooting things in a cinematic way. I just slowly created a way of language that could be more cinematic and tell this story that was unfolding in front of us.”

Often, video game movies are big budgets. there are exceptions such as Josh Reuben’s famous film Werewolves Within.” However, in this case, the team had to try to do a lot with very little. “It was a very low budget. We didn’t have any money, we were literally scraping by,” Grylls said. – To be honest, we didn’t know if anyone would watch this movie.”

Another big problem is the fact that this is an online video game where anyone can kill her at any time – and those people can kill the people who are trying to play the game. “There were some problematic characters involved,” 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 to craft the film’s narrative. Sound, according to Grylls, was the biggest problem:

“The sound was so mixed because either someone didn’t have a very good microphone or it was malfunctioning because there were so many people on stage that everything just blended together. Sometimes we had to do some ADR. It involved going back and trying to say what we were saying.”

When it came time for the actual execution, the logistics were really difficult to pull together. This happened in several places in the game, and again, they have no control over what other players did. They had to make sure the cast was set for the revival at the last location, or it could delay events by 30 minutes or more. “Each rehearsal took at least an hour to get everyone in one place to start rehearsal,” Grylls said.

“We were live streaming (the performance), so people were watching it on YouTube and Twitch,” Crane explained. “Pini was the eyes of a stream. So we thought, “Please don’t kill her. If it falls, the stream will die.” We should have tried to be a little careful and try to protect you.’

In the end, the stream of the play “Hamlet” was successful. Will he become one of the best interpretations of Hamlet of all time, with Laurence Olivier? It’s not for me to say. What is certain is that the response from critics and audiences has been almost universally positive. The Grand Theft Hamlet won the Jury Prize for Best Documentary at SXSW. “We’ve been shortlisted for BAFTA, for God’s sake,” Grylls said in surprise. For Crane, the recognition affirms:

“It just means that this thing that could have been just this ridiculous idea that no one would have heard anything about has now made a cultural mark and people have seen it all over the world and it’s resonated with people.. I think this is most unusual for me.”

“It’s been a wonderful surprise,” Grylls said of the reaction to the film. “I never believed I’d make my first (feature) in a game, but it’s thanks to Sam coming up with this crazy idea.” Now audiences will get a chance to experience it in theaters, which not every movie gets these days. “It’s a movie about community and coming together, so it was incredible to see her find her community in the theater and people who really accept her,” Grylls added.

Hamlet’s Grand Theft is now in theaters.