I was astonished to find that I’d reported on the possibility of a Metal Gear Solid movie coming to fruition way back in March 2008. That’s almost two years ago: the writers strike had only just finished, and Metal Gear Solid 4 hadn’t even been released.
And then nothing, for 22 months. Until yesterday, when producer Mike De Luca informed Collider that the chances of a Metal Gear Solid movie now emerging have reduced dramatically. Never say never, but the project would appear to be dead.
De Luca said:
“I don’t think it’s going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made.”
“The video game companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard. And in the case of Metal Gear Solid, the agendas just…. not because the parties weren’t amicable, it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up.”
The parties being mentioned are Sony, which owns the movie rights to Metal Gear Solid, and Konami, the developers of the bestselling game series. It appears Konami is the main reason for the stalling (and possible canning) of the project, which is real shame as Metal Gear Solid seems a shoe-in for a successful adaptation to the big screen.
The project isn’t necessarily dead. If the Prince of Persia movie proves to be a big hit then it’s entirely possible the two parties could be persuaded to sit down and talk again. And I hope they do because Metal Gear Solid is already so cinematic that a movie version should be simple.
