Well, it took more than a year to become official, but, after director Jordan Vogt-Roberts revealed he’d long envisioned Oscar Isaac as his Solid Snake and Isaac himself said he’d love to play the character, Sony has confirmed (via Deadline) that its Metal Gear Solid adaptation will star the in-demand actor.
Hideo Kojima’s long-running stealth-action series launched on the Nintendo way back in 1987, persevering throughout the decades to unspool an elaborate mythology and become one of the oddest franchises in all of gaming. It’s unclear at this point how much of Sony’s movie will incorporate the franchise’s five decades of in-game history, but, considering Isaac’s playing Solid Snake and not Naked Snake, Solidus Snake, or Punished “Venom” Snake (and, you know, it’s called Metal Gear Solid), it’s likely the story will align in some way with 1998's Metal Gear Solid. It’s not like they’re going to make a Metal Gear movie without Psycho Mantis.
Now that the ball’s rolling, Metal Gear fans will no doubt be dreaming up their own choices for who should play franchise icons like Mantis, Revolver Ocelot, Otacon, and Liquid Snake (lotsa Snakes), not to mention Sons of Liberty’s Raiden, one of the most despised characters in gaming history.
They’ll have plenty of time to do so, too, as it’s unlikely this one launches anytime soon. Isaac’s got a full plate that includes a leading role in the MCU as Moon Knight. Still, it’s a big get for Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) and screenwriter Derek Connolly, the scribe behind Jurassic World and its sequel.
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I’m into it. Anyone complains, they get…CQC?!
Try to remember the basics of CQC.
I’m not even going to hope for the best & expect the worst on this- with the history of movie studios not understanding how to properly adapt video game films, and Kojima’s bonkers story & themes seeming unadaptable in any hands but his, and Connolly’s oeuvre ranging from mediocre to stupendously idiotic, it’s best to hope for serviceable and expect the worst.That said, Oscar Isaac is amazingly charismatic and hopefully will bring some real interesting dynamic to Snake- Vogt-Roberts is a pretty decent director to boot, and while I have no doubts that he won’t manage to capture the full breath of Metal Gear Solid, he’ll hopefully make it a fun enough experience. I’d rather him than Paul WS Anderson.
My understanding about video game adaptations is that part of the reason they tend to be so terrible is that the IP owners—the video game companies—usually have enough clout (being large companies) that they routinely wrangle major editorial control over the movie. This, of course, never ends well, because they are not filmmakers and what they want ends up clashing with the writer/director. This is more of a problem than it is with things like book adaptations, where even highly successful authors don’t have the financial muscle that a large corporation has (and most authors don’t have much clout at all). Add into that the usual studio inteference, and also the fact that video game movies are a kind of ghetto within the industry: few of the really talented filmmaking types want to be involved with them. All of these things conspire to ensure that video game movies are much less likely than the average movie to turn out good.There’s nothing fundamental about a movie adapted from video game source material that would make them bad: for fuck’s sake, The LEGO Movie turned out fantastic, but that was because it had a top-notch creative team and managed to avoid studio/IP-owner interference. One of these days, statistically speaking, we’ll eventually get a video game movie that’s really good on its own terms, and maybe that will at least help overcome the self-perpetuating cycle of “video game movies are always bad, so the best talent never wants to be involved, helping insure that video game movies are always bad.”
On the plus side, Konami literally does not seem to give a shit about any of their video game franchises any more except to turn them into pachinko machines, so maybe the witer/director will have a longer leash on this one?
There’s nothing fundamental about a movie adapted from video game source material that would make them badI think it depends on the adaptation. I don’t have a word for it, but there’s an intrinsic diminishing returns issue for certain games that I’d argue is totally a fundamental problem. Specific games on a base level, allow players to enact the things we recognize in movies. The power fantasy of being a spy, or an adventurer, or a pilot, or a criminal. It’s what they can offer that movies can’t. It’s what makes Tomb Raider not Indiana Jones. Because we already have Indiana Jones. But when you turn Tomb Raider into a movie, it’s instantly hit with those diminishing returns. (In my head canon, I’ve always called this the “Multiplicity Effect.” Where the copy of a copy is not quite as sharp.) We already have Indiana Jones (and the serial adventures that inspired it), so with Tomb Raider, we’re getting None Of These Things: The Movie. A second-rate knock off of films done better. This will be the fundamental problem the Uncharted film will face, too- The question of what it brings to the table to make it its own, besides cheap brand recognition.
In the case of such works, like Tomb Raider/Uncharted (which take cues and inspiration from another extremely well-known piece of IP, as you mention), that’s probably an additional factor that makes things a little more difficult. But all works adapt ideas from previous works, even movies: what made Raiders so great wasn’t that it wasn’t based on anything (it wasn’t an adaptation according to Academy rules, but it was certainly a modern take on the serial adventures Spielberg and his cohorts grew up with), but rather that it was done with verve and energy and had a great cast and a great script. A movie whose original IP is a video game could still have a great cast and a great script.
Even with gaming becoming more mainstream and accepted, I don’t see video game adaptations becoming blockbusters any time soon. Speaking for myself, I’ve found very few video game stories compelling. They’ve always been an afterthought to me. I’d struggle to name one plot point from any game considered to have a good story with solid writing. I suspect the majority of gamers are similar, content to play video games for the action/engagement, and gloss over the hacky and poorly written stories. The only game that’s left any lasting impact on me recently was Journey. Name one video game story that isn’t sci-fi B movie schlock, paint by numbers medieval fantasy (Witcher III included), or mind numbingly bland “war stuff”. I appreciated Life is Strange’s effort, but even there I found the writing way too on the nose, and nothing remarkable to separate it from every angsty, emo, teen drama story.
Yeah, but there’s no reason a movie has to straight adapt a game’s story. There have been at least a double handful of games with great stories, but a good writer could take the raw material of a game’s story and turn it into a compelling movie screenplay: adjust, trim, alter as needed.
There’s a weird symmetrical irony in modern gaming and gaming adaptations:Hollywood is more interested in the gameplay than the story than the game devs are, and the game devss are more interested in the story than the gameplay than Hollywood is.It should be the reverse.
Based on everything I know about Vogt-Roberts, I’m cautiously optimistic that he could be the director to finally snap the video game adaptation curse. I think he understands what’s cinematic about video games and how to translate that to an actual film. The scene in Kong: Skull Island when Kong attacks the helicopters felt like a perfectly realized film version of a great video game cutscene. It’s one of my favorite action film sequences in a long time. The POV shot of Kong holding the helicopter above his head from inside the helicopter felt like such a great marriage of film and video games.
Skull Island had a lot more verve and personality than you usually get with blockbusters these days. Like Colin Trevorrow, Vogt-Roberts jumped from one indie film to making blockbusters, but unlike Trevorrow, he actually delivered the goods. And I think Skull Island shows that he can manage the tone of a Metal Gear Solid movie. He takes the world mostly seriously, but he’s not afraid to insert a dark sense of humor or to include some strange visuals. Consider me cautiously optimistic as well.
Yeah, I do think he has a respectable quality in his directing. I just think there’s three possible outcomes:VERY LIKELY- The film is garbage, just more mindless drivel that barely has any reference to source materialVERY POSSIBLE- Vogt-Roberts makes a highly entertaining film that is a fun watch but cuts out a lot of the zany Kojima style & broad themes, for the sake of mass appealLONGSHOT- The film is a near-masterpiece, that adapts Snake’s story in a perfect send-up to video game’s narrative, and captures Kojima’s style, etc.
You forgot ‘most likely: this film continues to languish in development hell and next we hear about it will be in five years with a different director and star attached’
haha I was going to say that we will see this film made before we see Uncharted, but it looks like that’s in post production now- guess Uncharted is passing the torch to Metal Gear Solid!God, Uncharted is going to be meh.
Yeah non-zero chance this movie continues to be in development hell for so long that Isaac does a Wahlberg and ends up playing Big Boss or something (old mgs 4 snake? I honestly can’t keep track of the timelines and family/clone tree of that story)
Vogt-Roberts is also a known Kojima fanboy, and even got a cameo in death stranding. So he’s a filmmaker who fully understands and fully loves the MGS franchise at least.
I expect nothing less than him sneaking around in a refrigerator box with two big eye holes cut in the front for two hours while heavily armed guards look around completely oblivious to it.
Oh yeah! Add plenty of times where he distracts people with risque magazines.
I don’t even care for the film at all. I will watch anything with Oscar Isaac (Snake is Guatemalan, woo hoo!).
But to me the most important part is reading:
SONY
KOJIMA
METAL GEAR
Oh yes…please bring us back our daddy 🙂
Ok
I’m waiting for a Death Stranding movie that’s made to look entirely like a video game and features 8 bit Sam delivering packages like in Paperboy all over the country.
Who would they get to play Sam, though?
Luigi
David Hayter
this is what i like to call ‘good news’. the interview where he very bashfully says he’d like to play snake is very cute and as much as i don’t really care about vogt-roberts as a director (i don’t love when people make a beard their personality), but he seems to be incredibly well versed in the (insane) lore and aesthetics of the series.
Plus MGS is fairly cinematically written. Just give me all the big set pieces in non-PS1 graphics and I’ll be happy.
He’d actually be great in the role, but I can’t help but wonder what his audition was like.
“Uh, guys? Is my line really supposed to be ‘OH MY GOD HOTNESS I WANNA BANG YOU’?”
“You want me to clap my what now?”
“Guys, I had a question about the ten page crab battle at the end…”
he just repeated everything as a question.
As a question??
“Okay Mr. Isaac, let’s start from line 15 on the script”“Line 15?”
Alright, Goldenrod copy, page 3: “Hungry for…words?”
…and you promise me this is going to make sense in the end version?
DIRECTOR: Alright Oscar, repeat after me. OKAY.
OSCAR: Okay!
DIRECTOR: Not bad, but deeper. More guttural. Draw it out more.
OSCAR: OKAY.
DIRECTOR: OKAAAY.
OSCAR: OKAAAY.
DIRECTOR: There ya go, that’s perfect!
“And then there is this other part where I just stand here for 3 hours while the bad guy just talks non-stop?”
OSCAR: You sure you need me in the frame for this? I’ve just been standing there and listening to him talk all day.
DIRECTOR: Yeah, Kojima-san was really insistent on that part. It’s even in his contract rider.
OSCAR: Eh, just spell my name right on the check.
!
Please tell me the trailer will be nothing but a cardboard box sneaking into a facility, Oscar Isaac pops up, smiles, and then the name “Metal Gear Solid” flashes on the screen
“Kept you waiting, huh?”
(That Oscar Issac smile)
i mean that would be an insanely good e3 trailer or something.
Only if he throws a girly magazine to distract some guards.
Some days you feed on a tree frog
Woo hoo!
Came for this, was not disappointed.Oscar Isaac had shown his acting chops in lot of his roles. If he can pull off being perfect Snake, perhaps this film could be the best video game movie since Sonic and Detective Pikachu (yes, they’re the best, even with solid B efforts).
How would Psycho Mantis work on the big screen? “So I see you like MCU films…”
Psycho Mantis comments on the trailers that played before the film, with different theatres receiving different cuts depending on what they’re previewing, or something.
That’s actually pretty damn clever.
What if it comes out on Netflix and Psycho Mantis can read that you have watched exactly 10 hours of 27 Dresses on repeat last Friday starting at 8 PM and asked, “WHY???”
I had just thought about that recently and it would be the ideal way to use streaming services if it could check your watch history. Even if it didn’t have lines for every title (I mean how could it, right?) they could reference things like how frequently you actually finish shows/series vs how often you just quit a show partway through, the way the game referenced how often the player saved their game.
Oh my god, yes.“Your list of unfinished movies is EMBRASSASSING! You probably don’t even want to finish THIS one! In fact…”*kicks you back to the menu*
“You only watch like 3 movies a year, why are you even still paying for this service?”
Too bad it’s not MGS2, I’m sure a lot of people in 2020 would enjoy the final villain being the president in Doc Ock arms.
Donald Trump would be perfect as Johnny Sasaki.
This should be a series, not a movie. I hope they realise that.
I think they should cast Tilda Swinton as the cardboard box Snake likes to hide under.
The screenwriter’s awful pedigree practically dooms this from the start. Another year around the sun, another thousand white men fail upwards.
I’d take Oscar Issac’s solid snake anyday.
I hope he says “Metal Gear” like David Hayter does. It’s honestly my favorite thing about the whole franchise.
I reflexively say it that way whenever somebody mentions the phrase “Metal Gear”.
Whenever Metal Gear comes up in conversation between one of my friends and I, the conversation always devolves into us just saying it that way a few times and trailing off.
Making a Metal Gear Solid movie seems redundant.
let’s just call it a remaster?
I have a feeling that trying to adapt the plot to even one of the MGS games to a 2-3 hours movie is going to turn out like that Warcraft movie. (Which was basically a non-stop exposition dump)
UPDATE: The Metal Gear Solid film has been canceled, after efforts to stop Isaac from exclaiming “A SURVEILLANCE CAMERA?!” every time he noticed the film crew were unsuccessful.
Nothing again Oscar Isaac but in a perfect world, Kurt Russel would have been Solid Snake… 15 years ago.
Does Raiden really still qualify as “one of the most despised characters in gaming history”? I thought most people were ok with him after the bonkers-awesome Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and his later appearances in the mainline series.
He probably spiked the graph harder than anyone else, and we’re still recovering from that.
I don’t think so. I’m somewhat an outlier, but I loved Raiden. That said, most people, whether they hated Raiden or not, would still probably admit that MGS2 is a masterpiece that holds its own with the other three games. (MGSV doesn’t count, even though it was a super fun experience.)
Kelly Marie Tran as Mei Ling and John Boyega as DARPA chief Donald Anderson. She deserves it after getting shafted in TROS. Bring the team back, except Rey.
I’m deeply looking forward to the extended third person sequence where he is trying to sneak past a bunch of guards and cameras and searchlights and keeps fucking it up and having to go back to the beginning and rage quits.Honestly, it might be that the only way to make a successful video game movie is to be super fourth wall breaking and meta. But that can also become awful very fast. Pixels was quite bad, but I think of any video game based (live action-ish) movies I’d choose to watch it again. Animated it’s Wreck Em Ralph without question.
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World sneaks in as a video games, rather than video game, adaptation.
I wonder if they’ll avoid the story parts stolen from Escape from New York, or if they’ll lean into them. Kurt Russell as Big Boss would be dope.
I think he’s an interesting choice, I think a movie based on a game series based on a mix of singular fourth wall breaking video game commentary and references to existing movies the creator thinks are cool is probably a bad idea, but for those who are totally against it I hope you take solace in the fact this film will never actually be made.
What a thrill
Snake? SNAKE? SNNAAAAKKKEEEE!!!
It’s just a box.