10 Video Games That Should Be Movies (And Who Should Direct Them)
4. Martin Scorsese's Vice City
The Game:
Maybe not the most enjoyable game in the Grand Theft Auto roster, but certainly the most adaptation friendly. Vice City begins in 1986 and follows ex-con Tommy Vercetti in the weeks after finishing a 15 year prison stretch for the murders of 11 men in Liberty City.
Fearing his release will cause trouble with rival families in the area, Tommy's boss Sonny sends him south to Vice City - which is Miami, Florida in all but name - where he is to seek out some high quality cocaine to send back home.
After his first meeting with his supplier is ambushed by masked men, Tommy (under no illusions about what will happen to him if he returns home empty handed) sets out to retrieve the stolen drugs and kill whoever took them.
Along the way he makes his mark on the colourful and complicated Vice City underworld, eventually forgetting about Sonny's drugs until he turns up on his doorstep asking for a share of Tommy's new empire.
Why Martin Scorsese?
When discussing a possible Grand Theft Auto movie, Martin Scorsese seems an obvious choice - he is the veteran of countless films that involve similar themes, from Goodfellas and Casino to Gangs of New York and The Departed.
What makes him especially perfect for the job of adapting Vice City, however, is the music. That might sound ridiculous, but an important part of the Vice City experience is the unrelenting presence of the 1980s, and Scorsese has a brilliant habit of juxtaposing his violence with catchy tunes.
On top of the game and the director being a perfect match aesthetically, the central part of Vice City's main story also screams Scorsese.
The plot is built around Tommy's relationship with Sonny, and the good-for-nothing surrogate father figure is a recurring theme in the director's work; Henry Hill has the charismatic Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas, Amsterdam has brutal Bill The Butcher in Gangs of New York, and both Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon's characters in The Departed have Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello.