GamesActionGrand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto 5Performing Hamlet in GTA Online felt like going back in time to the Globe Theatre where ‘people would just throw apples at you, or there were prostitutes coming and going,’ say award-winning filmmakersWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesActionGrand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto 5Performing Hamlet in GTA Online felt like going back in time to the Globe Theatre where ‘people would just throw apples at you, or there were prostitutes coming and going,’ say award-winning filmmakersWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GRAND THEFT HAMLET | Official Trailer | In US Theaters January 17 - YouTubeWatch On
GRAND THEFT HAMLET | Official Trailer | In US Theaters January 17 - YouTube
GRAND THEFT HAMLET | Official Trailer | In US Theaters January 17 - YouTube
In 2021, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were whiling away the Covid lockdowns in GTA Online when they had an idea: “Why not stage Hamlet inside the game?” They recorded hundreds of hours of in-game attempts to perform Shakespeare amid the chaos of GTA 5 and put together a feature-length documentary, Grand Theft Hamlet, which has now won multiple awards, earned a 94% Rotten Tomatoes score, and will premiere in US theaters on January 17.
The film is alreadyin a number of UK theaters, and was first shown at SXSW back in March, where it won Best Documentary Feature. Crane and co-director Pinny Grylls also picked up a couple of British Independent Film Awards.
The juxtaposition of a violent, chaotic videogame and Hamlet creates an obvious tension, though the amphitheater in GTA 5’s Los Santos isn’t necessarily all that different from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, says Grylls.
“There’s a certain thing, the irreverence of the fact that the people we were meeting didn’t really give a shit,” Grylls said in a recent interview withRadio Times. “You [co-director Sam Crane] said to me very early on, ‘It feels like I went back in time to the Globe 500 years ago where people would just throw apples at you … or there were prostitutes coming and going, and people were selling stuff.’ The theater in Shakespeare’s time was like that. It was popular entertainment. It wasn’t a dark room where everyone had to be quiet.”
We already know, of course, how much meaning and comedy can be found in the ways players interact in online games, and GTA Online has been a particularly fertile ground for dramatic roleplaying. Perhaps PC Gamer contributor Joe Donnelly didn’t approach “I tried to rob a jewellery store as a blind drunk Bad Santa in a GTA 5 roleplay server” with a mind to seek the “moments of pathos, emotion, and lyricism” that theGrand Theft Hamlet websitepromises, but you know, same kind of thing.
Outside of Red vs. Blue, I can’t think of another obvious instance of machinima getting a theatrical release, and reviews for Grand Theft Hamletare positive so far.Empirecalled the film a “riotously funny, unexpectedly poignant ode to gaming, Shakespeare, the indestructible nature of art, and the benefits of befriending bazooka wielding extraterrestrials.”
Grand Theft Hamlet is not available to stream right now, but will presumably be available onMubi, which owns the subscription streaming rights, sometime after the US theatrical release in January.
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Square Enix launches new anti-harassment policy to protect its employees and partners from abusive fans
The Sims begins its 25th anniversary celebration next week with a Behind The Sims episode of news and announcements
Path of Exile 2 numberlord spends 16 straight days killing rare monsters to prove that a stat that makes loot better makes better loot
Palestinian developer raises more than $200,000 to make Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the horrors of the 1948 Nakba
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