Geri Horner joins the Gran Turismo cast in what seems like a bit of brilliant Formula 1 trolling
Ginger Spice has a very curious connection to a famous racing driver associated with the Gran Turismo games
Aux News Gran Turismo
The cast of Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo movie is coming together (via The Hollywood Reporter), with Djimon Hounsou and Geri Horner (a.k.a. Geri Halliwell, a.k.a. Ginger Spice from the Spice Girls) joining the video game adaptation along with the previously announced David Harbour and Archie Madekwe. Rather than an adaptation of some kind of plot from the Gran Turismo games, the movie is based on a true story about a player who is so good at Gran Turismo racing games that he gets a chance to try being a real professional racing driver, with Madekwe playing the teen racer and Harbour playing a retired driver who teaches him how to translate his skills on a DualShock to the real world. (Actually, if he’s serious, he’s probably playing with a wheel and not a controller, which should make for a relatively easy transition.)
That’s all interesting, but what we’d like to talk about is the fact that hiring Geri Horner is some top-tier freakin’ trolling on behalf of Blomkamp, or Sony, or whoever was in charge of this casting. See, Geri Horner is married to Christian Horner, the current team principal of Red Bull’s Formula 1 team (and one of the main stars of Netflix’s Drive To Survive, because he very much knows the value of controlling the narrative).
For years, Red Bull has been locked in an absolutely vicious rivalry with the Mercedes F1 team, which includes ace driver Lewis Hamilton, who is arguably the greatest competitor in the history of Formula 1 (he has seven or eight world titles, depending on who you ask). Lewis Hamilton has also been an ambassador of sorts for the Gran Turismo video game series, having been granted the title of “Maestro” for Gran Turismo Sport and getting a series of fawning in-game documentaries in this year’s Gran Turismo 7. Basically, the games love him.
Now Geri Horner, whose husband has spent years trying so hard to dethrone Hamilton and Mercedes that he was willing to cheat to make it happen, is starring in a movie about these video games that are associated with Lewis Hamilton (who, as far as we know, has nothing to do with the movie).
So was this on purpose? And if not, how could it not be on purpose? What are the odds of this happening? Geri Horner, who doesn’t act all that often because she’s a very famous singer, suddenly decides to be in a video game movie (of all things), and it just happens to be a video game that prominently features a guy who has motorsports-related history with her husband? Don’t Worry Darling wishes it could’ve been this fun behind the scenes.
26 Comments
I would have rather had Aliens 2
Hamilton has seven driver’s world titles, just like Michael Schumacher.
Even though realistically it should’ve been 8. Like he was literally cheated out of his world championship last year which really sucks because as this year shown Max Verstappen can win mighty fine all by his self. But last year proved that F1 can easily be scripted so what’s the point in followin’? ‘Course with match fixin’ an’ stuff one can easily say the same about soccer. So again what’s the point?
I mean, this year’s Red Bull car is the result of them breaking the spending cap, so it’s arguable just how much of it is down to Verstappen alone. That’s both his titles now with asterisks against them.
At the end of the season, it came down to Hamilton’s mistake when he forgot how his brakes worked. If he hadn’t done that, Abu Dhabi wouldn’t have mattered.
At the end of the season it came down to a erroneous decision of a racing director. There are no ifs, wouldas, shouldas.
If Hamilton had remembered how his brakes worked, the decision wouldn’t have mattered at all.
Yeah. You said it already. It doesn’t make more sense when you repeat it.
But let me try to explain: you assume that if Hamilton didn’t made a mistake in 6th race of the season then the outcome of the rest of the races would be exactly the same as it was – which is very doubtful (would he be so desparate at Silverstone? wouldn’t Max be even more?), and – first and foremost – it is something we will never know.You can create lots of different “what if” scenarios, you can argue that Max is a worthy champion, you can say that Silverstone was a murder attempt, or that Red Bull cheated with the budget, and on, and on…
But ultimately: it all does not matter. What matters: Hamilton has done enough to be a provisional world champion on the last lap of the season, and then a race director decided to not follow the rules of the sport. That’s it. End of story.
IDK – once Max dove in the pits for softs under the yellow, he had the race. Whether or not Masi followed the rules throughout the season.
It’s this type of idea that makes movies based on video games so successful.
Highly tenuous.
Hopefully she doesn’t cheat like her husband.
The only way a ‘Gran Turismo’ film is going to work is if it is written as a sequel to ‘Titane’.
Is this insipid attempt at creating drama where literally none exists the bottom of the barrel? Or will Barsanti find further depths to plumb in his task of helping G/O drive this site fully into the ground? probably
In this case, he’s probably right. F1 is nothing but “futbol” on the racetrack, and the series traffics in it. Since there’s little drama on the track, how else are you going to fill the several seconds between each car during the parade? Like soccer, you need to wait several minutes for anything to happen, and it’s usually midfield. F1 is a show. It knows it, sells it, profits from it, and cultivates it. For those who believe it wasn’t this way under Ecclestone, they just hadn’t access to it. Barsanti is the perfect writer for F1.
Absolutely true. The openness of the car design rules result in little on-track action mostly. The real drama is in the engineering loopholes/tricks. My favorite recent one was Ferrari putting a bag of dry ice on top of the air intake. People were racking their brains trying to figure out what/how much performance benefit they were getting. Turns out it was there to block the camera into the cockpit and prevent steering wheel settings from being recorded
Yeah. It’s a non story. Red Bull (the team/company that Geri’s husband works for) was hugely involved in the Gran Turismo games.
Spice Girls still weirdly committed to changing their last names with each new marriage.
All their husbands should just change their names to “Mr. Spice”?
Plenty of folks inside F1 refer to him as “Spice Boy” or “Christian Halliwell” based on his wife’s fame/fortune compared to his
Is Baby’s husband “Baby Boy”?
Yes, I endorse this.
“We’re gonna need a bigger cabinet!”
“Ace Driver” “Willing to cheat to make it happen.” Tell me you’re a Hamilton fanboy without telling me you’re a Hamilton fanboy. And whoever you ask doesn’t matter one iota because the fact is that he only has 7 WC’s. No matter how much those CultLH members bitch, whine and cry about it.
“ a true story about a player who is so good at Gran Turismo racing games that he gets a chance to try being a real professional racing driver,”
So it’s The Last Starfighter?
Sam, stick to embarrassing yourself about things yout at least claim to know. This is F1. Amateur – don’t hurt yourself.