Last month, the first trailer of Grand Theft Auto VI was finally released, which included several references to the real world. The game will be set once again in Vice City, based on Miami, and Rockstar Games was inspired by many events that happened in the area and went viral on social media.
Among the dozens of references in the video, we find one about the trial of Lawrence Sullivan, better known as the “Florida Joker”, who went viral after his arrest in 2017. In recent weeks, Sullivan has threatened twice to sue Rockstar for using his image.
Although initially Sullivan asked for 1 million dollars from the studio, that figure has now skyrocketed to 10 million for his “suffering and pain”. On this occasion, the Joker from Florida has given Rockstar a deadline until January 14th (three days after his birthday), stating that if his demands were not met, “he would take that boy out of the psychiatric hospital” and “hack your system again”.
Sullivan’s words seem to refer to Arion Kurtaj, the teenage hacker found guilty of leaking an hour and a half of GTA VI gameplay in 2022 and who last month was sentenced to life imprisonment in a penitentiary hospital.
Although the reference in the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer is clearly intended as a parody of Sullivan’s arrest in 2017, it is important to note that Rockstar made a series of substantial changes.
While Sullivan’s tattoos are based on the Joker from The Dark Knight (played by Heath Ledger), especially the scars that appeared around the villain’s mouth in the 2008 film, the image from the GTA VI trailer resembles more the Joker that appeared in the 2016 film Suicide Squad (played by Jared Leto) and had several very recognizable tattoos, including the word “damaged” written on the forehead.
