Metal Gear Solid is undoubtedly one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. The game features protagonist Solid Snake who goes on a mission to find the superweapon called Metal Gear. The video game is soon going to be adapted into a live action movie which will be helmed by director Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
During a recent interview with Collider, Vogt-Roberts said that he feels Metal Gear Solid movie could turn out be the first great video game movie.
“There are Star Wars movies to talk about, there’s all sorts of stuff to talk about. To me, this is that. This is a new frontier not only for me as a filmmaker but I just feel like for audiences. To me, it’s a way to make the first great video game movie where it doesn’t matter that it’s based on a video game,” the Kong: Skull Island director said.
Vogt-Roberts made it clear that he’s going for an R-rating for the Metal Gear Solid film. However, he is still a bit concerned about capturing the brutal nature of the film.
“It’s about doing it for a price so you can make the riskier, balls-to-the-wall, Kojima-san version of it,” he said while explaining how he aims to keep the film at a reasonable cost.
The director said that the biggest challenge in adapting Metal Gear Solid is the sheer scope of the franchise. Notably, the story featuring protagonist Solid Snake and his nemesis Big Boss has been told across eleven games including prequels, spin-offs, time-jumps as well as history splits.
“The thing about Metal Gear is it’s intentionally sprawling and it’s intentionally dense,” Vogt-Roberts said. “It’d be super easy to do one sliver of it or do too much at once. And we’ve spent the last little bit really trying to figure out, to me, the most Kojima-san inspired way to tackle as much of that story through a device that I think allows you to tap in…how to put this without spoiling it?…regardless, we have a device that I think allows us to respect the breadth of the franchise, respect the sprawling nature of the franchise, respect the somewhat convoluted nature of the franchise at times. But to still show you the mirrors. What I mean by that is all those timelines fundamentally exist because they show the repetition of war throughout time. They show the repetition and the cycle of pain throughout time. So it ’s almost impossible to tell just one story now. You need the full throughline of what this game is about.”
Vogt-Roberts said that he wants the film’s story to be relevant in today’s world.
“People have forgotten about mutually assured destruction,” the director said. “People have forgotten about nuclear proliferation. People have forgotten about what that type of nuclear fear is. We’ve done a lot of work to make the Metal Gears themselves relevant in a very cool way.”
He assured that the film will have elements for everyone to enjoy and connect within the film. The director said he will try to put the best version of the video game on-screen.
“We have to work that much harder to make the film that touches people in the same way that you and I as kids were like, blown away by it. To me, Metal Gear Solid is that. Hideo Kojima’s world is that. So hell or high water I will be fighting for this thing the rest of my life to not only shepherd the best version of it on-screen but just because I genuinely believe it’s a world that people are ready to see. And that by leaning into all the crazy things that people may say, ‘Whoa, you can’t adapt a Metal Gear movie because of this, this, and this.’ I actually believe that, that, that, and that is how you make the rest of the world fall in love with it.”
Metal Gear Solid is currently in development. The film does not have a release date attached as of yet.
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Source: Collider
