Silverstone once again played host to the final stage of the UK GT Academy national competition yesterday – and provided exactly the level of competition we’ve come to expect from it.

When GTP covered Bryan Heitkotter’s return last week, we said it had come as a bit of a surprise he wasn’t retained as a Nismo Athlete for 2013. In timely fashion, Bryan has reminded all of us why he was 2011’s US GT Academy champion.

New GT5 Seasonal Events are now available, featuring pre-1990 rally cars in Time and Drift Trials at Eiger Nordwand.

GTPlanet recently had the opportunity to sit down with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s President and CEO, Jim Ryan, for a round-table discussion on the business end of the Gran Turismo franchise.

The latest Seasonal Events are now available in Gran Turismo 5, featuring front engine rear-wheel drive vehicles. Five expert level challenges touring such locations as Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Special Stage Route 5 await, and the rewards are just as high as they’ve come to be in these challenges.

Since it was leaked last week, news of the Gran Turismo feature film has spread far and wide among the video game, automotive, and entertainment industries, but the project hadn’t yet been publicly confirmed by anyone associated with Sony.

The international qualification round of GT Academy 2013 concluded over the weekend, involving over 1.3 million total participants.

Nissan’s all-gamer line-up of Lucas Ordonez, Jann Mardenborough, Wolfgang Reip and Peter Pyzera took a Pro-Am podium in the Spa 24 Hours today when they brought the No.35 Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 to the chequered flag in third place in class and seventh place overall.

The GT Academy drivers are ready for another assault on the Spa 24hr this weekend as eight drivers line up in the two GT3 class Nismo GT-Rs.

Gran Turismo fans definitely had some unexpected news this week, with the announcement that a Gran Turismo movie is in the works. How the producers will develop a plot around Gran Turismo will be very interesting to see. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of interesting (and hilarious) ideas being shared in our forums!

The latest Seasonal Events are now available in Gran Turismo, featuring American muscle, among them being the Dodge Viper, and while this week’s challenges doesn’t offer the usual amount of variety associated with the weekly events, the rewards should more than make up for that.

Hollywood news site “TheWrap” is reporting some certainly unexpected news: Sony Pictures has started production on an “action movie” based on the Gran Turismo series.

Mashable quietly published an interesting video interview with North American Gran Turismo producer Taku Imasaki earlier this month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l1MQFchpmuc

“Red Bull 5G” is a national Japanese gaming competition which seeks to find the country’s best gamers in five different categories: first-person shooters, racing, sports, fighting, and puzzle.

Aside from the recent 2.14 update for Gran Turismo 5 and the GT Academy demo raking in over 1 million downloads, nothing of any real interest has happened this week, at least as far as I’m concerned. That could all change at the drop of a hat though so don’t bury your head in your pillow just yet. Who knows what’s going to happen this weekend. 

Sony and Nissan have formally announced GT Academy 2013 has received over 1 million downloads worldwide as of July 16, just two weeks after the GT6 demo which hosts the competition was released.