Grand Theft Hamlet is a Shakespeare movie inside GTA 5, and it’s coming to a theater near you
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Something is rotten in the state of Los Santos. No, not the normal amount of violence, robbery, and bad driving, but the fact that people won’t leave some poor filmmakers alone to perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Grand Theft Hamlet is a documentary all about the attempt to bring a little culture to GTA 5, and if you’re in the US you might be able to go to a theater to watch it for yourself.
Released earlier this year on the film festival circuit, Grand Theft Hamlet blurs the line between documentary and machinima, with it being filmed directly inside GTA 5. During the Covid lockdowns in 2021, two actors – Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen – decided to stage a performance of Hamlet directly in the open-world game. This, as you can imagine, was met with a combination of bemusement, joy, and massive violence.
The documentary covers the attempts to get people to pay attention in GTA Online, while also dodging incoming rocket fire. Taken from over 300 hours of in-game material, this film shows the trials the actors went through to stay alive in-game long enough to get lines out, and highlights the people who would stop and watch, quietly appreciating a spot of Shakespeare.
Grand Theft Hamlet has already won some awards thanks to being shown at movie festivals, but now it’s coming out into the real world. Streaming platform Mubi has picked up the rights to the documentary and it will be shown in US theaters in 2025, along with being available for streaming.
The reviews have highlighted that this, despite being a strange premise, might be one of the better spotlights for gaming out there. “Online video games might seem like a good place for people to hide who they really are,” IndieWire movie critic David Ehrlich writes. “But “Grand Theft Hamlet” suggests they can reveal even more about us than we feel comfortable sharing in our waking lives.”
If you’d like to learn more about Grand Theft Hamlet, head over to the official site to get a taste of what’s in store for you.
Should this all prompt you to head back to the wild streets of Los Santos, our guides to all GTA 5 cheats will help you have a whale of a time. If you’d like to keep an eye on the future, our guide to the GTA 6 release date will ensure you’ve got all the info you need.
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