GTA V’s Influence Behind This Year’s Gripping Action-Thriller

Jean Luc Herbulot’s new movie Zero is one of 2025’s most fascinating projects: The latest action film from the director of the cult hit Saloum has a radical political message, but still packs tons of thrills into its 88-minute run time. And while real-world events certainly played a big part in inspiring both projects, Herbulot told Polygon he also drew deeply from video games for both Saloum and Zero.

Before starting his career as a filmmaker in the early 2010s, Herbulot dreamed of being a video game designer. “I was born with video games,” he said to Polygon. One of his first creative projects was an RPG he made on RPG Maker in 2002, and he described himself as a “big, big video game guy.”

Herbulot still plays a lot of RPGs to this day, and their influence is all over his recent projects — the Western-tinged action-horror Saloum and the darkly comedic crime story of Zero. “With Saloum, I was playing Red Dead Redemption,” he told Polygon. “When I was doing Zero, I was playing back GTA V. I was like, How can I copy this fucked-up mission and put it in Africa?

Zero follows two Americans who wake up in Dakar strapped into bomb vests and wearing earbuds, through which a mysterious voice (Willem Dafoe) tells them what to do if they want to make it out alive. Herbulot’s main inspiration from GTA V came from the idea of that “fucked-up mission,” but also “how you can feel trapped,” Herbulot said. “And having somebody on the phone that you never really see and that just tells you what to do. [The premise ended up being] way more emotional than I thought. And way more political than what I thought.”

Herbulot had one other very specific influence from GTA V that he wanted to impart on Cameron McHarg, who plays one of the two bomb-vested Americans, the violent, unpredictable, unnamed character referred to as “#2.” Herbulot wanted McHarg to channel chaos engine and career criminal Trevor Philips, one of the game’s three playable protagonists.

“I tried to give Cameron some Trevor references, but he didn’t get it,” Herbulot said. “Watch Trevor when he is doing this and that. He was like, What the fuck are you talking about?”

So while other directors ask their actors to watch specific movies to inspire their performances, Herbulot assigned video games to his stars. Star, co-writer, and producer Hus Miller told Polygon that helped him picture what Herbulot was thinking stylistically and visually for the movie.

“That element was definitely there,” Miller said. “Once Jean Luc mentioned those things, I did dive back into [GTA V] again to get prepped for the movie.”

Directly before his interview with Polygon, Herbulot said he was scrolling through Instagram and saw a fan-made “GTA Africa” video that caught his eye. “I was looking at it and I was like, That’s my next movie.”

But for now, he’s in the same boat as the rest of us. “We’re all waiting for GTA 6,” he lamented.

Zero is now playing in theaters, and is available for digital rental or purchase on VOD platforms. Saloum is streaming on Shudder, AMC Plus, and for free with ads on Hoopla, and is also available for digital rental or purchase on VOD platforms.