New rumors claim Will Smith will lead a Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas movie based on the Rockstar Games franchise.
The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been running since 1997, in which time it has released 16 games across various platforms. The award-winning crime saga even holds the second-highest-selling game of all time in its fifth installment.
Will Smith's Grand Theft Auto Movie Rumors Explained
A trailer posted on YouTube by KH Studio has gone viral after it showcased a live-action Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas movie supposedly set to release in 2025.
The video claims Fresh Prince of Bell Air star Will Smith will lead the way as San Andreas' lead character CJ (Carl Jackson) with a voiceover from the Hollywood star playing over the trailer footage.
However, this trailer is, unfortunately, nothing more than a work of fiction that appears to combine footage from existing movies with AI-generated content, which is also seemingly the source of the voiceover from Smith.
As of now, there has been no news of Smith starring in a Grand Theft Auto movie nor of one being in development at all. But could one happen in the future?
Could a Grand Theft Auto Movie Ever Happen?
Video games movies once had a reputation for being famously bad cash grabs to capitalize on a dedicated fan base. But that stigma has somewhat shifted in recent years thanks to successful and highly-acclaimed adaptations such as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Last of Us, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more.
As Grand Theft Auto is arguably the biggest video game franchise in the world, many are eager to see it receive the big-screen treatment, especially as its criminal essence leaves plenty of room for exciting stories with unique characters.
However, a Hollywood partnership appears to be off the cards for Rockstar Games according to co-founder Dan Houser, who told The Ankler in 2024 that there had been talks about Rockstar adaptations, but they generally aren't interested.
Houser explained that "a few awkward dates" left the studio asking why they should pursue a Grand Theft Auto adaptation, to which they were told, “Because you get to make a movie.”
He explained how the proposition would involve the Hollywood studio developing a movie while they end up "having no control and taking a huge risk:
“And we'd be like, no, what you've described is you making a movie and us having no control and taking a huge risk that we’re going to end up paying for with something that belongs to us.”
The Rockstar co-founder noted that "the economics" and "the risk never made sense," but in the days those ideas were discussed, there were generally a feeling that "games made poor-quality movies:"
“They thought we’d be blinded by the lights and that just wasn't the case. We had what we considered to be multi-billion-dollar IP, and the economics never made sense. The risk never made sense. In those days, the perception was that games made poor-quality movies. [But] it's a different time now.”
Take-Two Interactive (the parent company of Rockstar Games) CEO Strauss Zelnick previously discussed the Hollywood scene with The Wrap in 2016 and explained why a Grand Theft Auto movie hasn't happened.
The Take-Two boss explained how they would "want to have complete creative control" of a Grand Theft Auto movie which would require them to "finance that motion picture," something which they lack the expertise to do:
“Part of it is, if we were to do something like that, we’d want to have complete creative control to make sure we expressed [GTA] in the way we wanted — and that would mean we’d need to finance that motion picture. While we have the balance sheet to do it, we don’t have the corporate expertise to do it, because only a handful of people inside Take-Two have ever worked in that business. I’m one of them. But that’s not what we do for a living.”
As such, the worlds of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption will likely remain exclusive to the playable space, unless, of course, the studio should happen to one day change its mind.
