Grand Theft Auto V’s Shawn “Solo” Fonteno sat down with us to discuss everything GTA, as well as his relationship with Ice Cube, and upcoming projects and ventures.
In under a month, Grand Theft Auto V has managed to take the world by storm with relative (if not undeniable) ease, shattering an incredible 7 Guinness world records in the process. Rockstar Games, the title’s developer, announced within the first couple days that the game had sold 11.2 million units in its first 24 hours, netting $815.7 million in revenue. Sales reached $1 billion two days later, only three total days after hitting the market. With its new records, Grand Theft Auto V has climbed to the top of the gaming business and has, more importantly, set the new standard for overall video game development and design. The title is also tops in the entertainment industry, generating more revenue than some of the most popular films and television shows in history – in other words, Grand Theft Auto V not only hit $1 billion in sales faster than the fastest-grossing video game (previously Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in 15 days), it beat the three biggest film launches of all time by 16 days (The Avengers, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and Avatar each hit the mark 19 days into their runs respectively).
The Source had the pleasure of sitting down with one third of the leading cast – Shawn “Solo” Fonteno, who plays the part of Franklin Clinton. Franklin embodies the likes of a modern day street hustler, caught between the comforts, dangers, and traps of the hood and the hard-to-reach, yet rewarding opportunities of the outside world; a gang-banger in a post gang-banging world. And before this moves to the interview portion itself, we thought it to be important to highlight the technical development of the game and the intense commitment Shawn (as well as Ned Luke [Michael] and Steven Oggmade [Trevor]) made to make his character come to life.
Along with a collective hundreds of thousands of man hours, lines of code, QA testing, many years, and sleepless nights, Solo immersed himself in his character, like any actor with a television or film role would. He wore a motion sensor suit, just as Avatar’s Sam Worthington did, capturing thousands of movements, fusing Shawn and Franklin together. It is, without a doubt, no easy task to build a game that is filled with a wealth and breadth of depth and scale such as GTA V.
And Rockstar spent an estimated $260 million on the development of Grand Theft Auto V, but the money, time, and care put into the game’s development is obviously paying dividends. Other publishers should take note.
Click on page two to read the interview in its entirety.
– Scott Randell (@DefinedByMvsic)
