The Directors Of A 2025 Horror Hit Are Making A Metal Gear Solid Movie
Still in a production dream.
Over the last three decades, there’s been a concerted effort to make video games appeal to a more cinematic sensibility. 1996’s Resident Evil, the interactive narrative stylings of David Cage, and even the recent God of War revival all point to a trend of game developers trying to be taken more seriously by borrowing Hollywood’s storytelling and visual conventions. And there’s one name that rises to the top as the most committed “filmmaker” in all of gaming: Hideo Kojima.
Responsible for Death Stranding and its recent sequel, as well as the short-lived but immensely acclaimed PT, Kojima’s biggest claim to fame is the Metal Gear Solid franchise. One of the most beloved and boundary-pushing series of all time, the original MGS taught players and developers that video games could successfully emulate film without losing sight of what makes gaming a unique medium in its own right. Now, almost 30 years later, the game that changed everything is finally making its way to the screen that inspired it.
Legendary super-spy Solid Snake certainly hasn't had an easy production journey.
The Hollywood Reporter recently revealed that after a lengthy stint in development hell, the Metal Gear Solid movie is finally back underway. This time, it’s coming from the directing team of Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the filmmakers behind last year’s wildly successful Final Destination: Bloodlines.
Metal Gear Solid has had a long and troubled journey to the screen; discussions regarding an adaptation have circled Hollywood since 2008, with actors and filmmakers like Christian Bale, Paul W.S. Anderson, and even David Hayter (Solid Snake’s original voice actor) putting themselves in the ring. The last time the film made genuine progress was in 2014, with Jordan Vogt-Roberts of Kong: Skull Island fame attached to direct. Oscar Isaac was announced as Solid Snake back in 2020, but updates then dried up.
The original Metal Gear Solid functions as both a sequel and a revival of the two Metal Gear games. It followed special ops soldier Solid Snake on a mission to infiltrate a nuclear weapons facility to take down FOXHOUND, a terrorist cell with access to a walking nuclear weapon named Metal Gear, as well as a personal connection to Snake himself. A love letter to the pulpy thrills of Western espionage films, the timeline and lore of Metal Gear is incredibly convoluted, with games like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater serving as prequels that follow Big Boss, an antihero and occasional antagonist whose DNA was used to create his “son,” Solid Snake.
The events of Snake Eater are instrumental in shaping the wartorn, paranoid future Solid Snake inhabits.
For a one-off film, it would make the most sense to skip the first two games and dive straight into Metal Gear Solid. The context provided by the originals could easily be articulated in flashbacks or exposition, and MGS, with its thrilling espionage twists and operatic family drama, is still the benchmark for cinematic storytelling in video games.
However, there's also an argument for the franchise to start with the events of Snake Eater, the prequel that charts Naked Snake’s tragic transformation into the ruthless mercenary Big Boss. The game’s narrative lays the groundwork for everything that comes after, and not only would it just be a surprising choice for fans to start from the beginning, but it would shift the thematic focus to being Big Boss’ story of a father forced into conflict with his son as a result of his mistakes bubbling over into endless warfare. But regardless of whether we're introduced to Solid Snake or his villainous Dad first, the fact that the film is back on track with fresh blood should be a ray of sunshine for fans who’ve been waiting decades to see Kojima’s dense epic brought to theaters.
