In 2021, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen were breaking through Covid lockdowns on GTA Online when they came up with an idea: “Why not put Hamlet in the game?” They recorded hundreds of hours of rehearsing Shakespeare in the chaos of GTA 5 and created the feature-length documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, which has already won numerous awards, has a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes and will premiere in US theaters on January 17.
The movie is already here in many British cinemasand was first shown at the SXSW festival in March, where it won the award for best documentary. Crane and co-director Pinny Grylls also won several British Independent Film Awards.
The juxtaposition of a violent, disordered video game and Hamlet creates obvious tension, although the Los Santos amphitheater in GTA 5 isn’t necessarily that different from Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, Grylls says.
Of course, we already know how much meaning and comedy can be found in player interactions in online games, and GTA Online has proven to be a particularly fertile ground for dramatic role-playing. Perhaps PC Gamer contributor Joe Donnelly didn’t approach the statement “I tried to rob a jewelry store as a blind drunk Bad Santa on the GTA 5 role-playing server” with an eye toward finding “moments of pathos, emotion and lyricism” that Grand Theft Hamlet website I promise, but you know, it’s the same.
Beyond Red vs. Blue can’t think of another obvious example of Machinima’s theatrical release and Grand Theft Hamlet’s review are positive so far. Empire called the film “a wildly 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 currently available for streaming, but will likely be available online Badwhich owns subscription streaming rights sometime after its U.S. theatrical release in January.
