Hideo Kojima proudly announced that there is a Metal Gear Solid movie on the way at todays Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event in Tokyo, Japan. This came as one of three big announcements, the other two being Metal Gear Solid 5 / Ground Zeroes & Metal Gear Solid Social Ops.
Konami and Kojima announced that Israeli-American film producer Avi Arad will be producing the film. Avi Arad has had a long and varied career including being the Toy Biz & Marvel CEO to producing the Spiderman and Iron Man films. Arad said, “For many years I fought to bring comics to theaters. Comic books are now biggest genre in cinema. Video games are the comic books of today.” Arad continued, “We will take our time and tell the story with all the nuances, ideology, cautionary tales needed.”
Kojima enthusiastically announced that the film will be released by Columbia Pictures (which is owned by Sony). He discussed some of his favorite movies released by Columbia, including Stand By Me and Taxi Driver. Arad supported Kojima by essentially saying that many high profile actors would love to be in the Metal Gear Solid movie due to the emotional depth of the characters.
So the big question is, why has it taken this long to happen? Well, there were previous serious plans to make an MGS movie but they fell apart due to minimal budgets authorized by studios in Hollywood. Now that Konami has secured a seemingly “AAA” budget they’re finally moving forward. I will remain a skeptic for now as we know these things come and go in Hollywood. No other details have been given about this upcoming live action movie.
Check out our other Metal Gear Solid posts here.
Metal Gear 25th Anniversary site (Japanese)