Metal Gear Solid seems like the kind of game series that would translate perfectly into a movie—which is good, because, while not much has happened with it so far, an MGS movie is in the works. (No, not the porn thing, an actual, theatrical film.) And while plenty of other seemingly ready-made game movies have dropped the ball (looking at you, Warcraft), director Jordan Vogt-Roberts recently gave assurances to Collider that he's going to get it right.
Vogt-Roberts, who signed to direct the film in 2014, said Metal Gear Solid is unique because it's been under the control of creator Hideo Kojima, who's been working with him on the script, from the very start. "For decades now Metal Gear Solid has essentially had one voice," he explained. "So you’re dealing with a highly, highly specific property that’s idiosyncratic to one persona and one person’s point of view and the way in which they interpret sort of culture and Western culture and twist that back around into this super-pure, amazing property that has a tone that I think is unlike anything else that is out there."
And while Metal Gear is a big-budget game series, the film adaptation won't necessarily break the bank. "I want to make the version of the movie that is most true to what it needs to be, so if that is a Deadpool or Logan route where you go with a smaller budget and you’re able to make it R, great," he said. "If you need to blow it out more and really get that bigger budget and go PG-13, I think it could exist in both avenues."
For now, the priority is simply getting the characters nailed down, and it sounds like Vogt-Roberts has a pretty good feel for what he wants, and what's important to fans. Of course, you could have said much the same about Duncan Jones, who exhibited similar enthusiasm for the Warcraft project prior to its release. It takes more than director's personal excitement to make a good film—although it's obviously better to have it than not. And Vogt-Roberts does sound like he knows what he's talking about.
"You look at the scope of the Metal Gear world and you go all the way back to the ‘60s and before that in the lore, and then you go to the more contemporary games in the near-future and stuff like that, you’re dealing with decades and decades and decades of characters," he said. "You’re dealing with, like, okay how do Snake and Big Boss interact, how does Zero and all these other people interact with each other? How do you pick and choose the cyborg ninja and the sniper wolf and all these people and have them fit into a narrative that makes sense?”
IMDB currently lists Metal Gear Solid as "in development," with no release target set. Jordan Vogt-Roberts is currently wrapping up work on Kong: Skull Island, which comes out next month and looks like it might be pretty good.
