20 years after Kojima announced a Metal Gear Solid movie was happening, Sony announces a Metal Gear Solid movie is happening

Just because a deal is reached to get a movie made doesn't mean it'll actually get made. We've seen it happen a bunch of times with videogame adaptations, like Just Cause, which was announced in 2011 and Splinter Cell, which was in development way back in 2005. Neither film ever materialized.

Enter Metal Gear Solid. Hideo Kojima announced the film adaptation himself back in 2006, some 20 years ago now, and despite occasional names popping up—like that Viggo Mortenson or Hugh Jackman would play Snake, or that Paul Thomas Anderson or Jordan Vogt-Roberts would direct—the movie has never appeared or seemingly gotten past the pre-production phase.

Smash cut to today, and like Snake climbing that ridiculously long ladder in Metal Gear Solid 3, we're just gonna keep going onward and upward. According to Sony, via The Hollywood Reporter, the Metal Gear Solid movie is happening, or happening again, or perhaps still happening.

Sony has signed Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the director duo of the rather good Final Destination: Bloodlines, to a deal to develop multiple films, including an animated Venom movie, sci-fi film The Earthling, and, yep, Metal Gear Solid.

"Metal Gear Solid was nothing short of a groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece that forever revolutionized video games," Lipovsky and Stein said—though The Hollywood Reporter unfortunately doesn't specify whether or not they said it perfectly in unison. I hope they did. "We are thrilled and honored to bring Hideo Kojima’s iconic characters and unforgettable world to life."

It's a standard, boring statement, but the two directors seem fantastically busy: in addition to those Sony pictures, they're also working on a new Gremlins movie, a film called Long Lost with Amblin Entertainment, and something called The Traveler over at Paramount. They're not necessarily directing all of those, but after the 20-year wait, I might be a bit more hopeful a MGS flick would see the light of day if the directors weren't already nipples-deep in other projects.

At least with the deal in place, we can probably expect some casting news, right? Who would make a good Solid Snake these days? Reacher's Alan Ritchson recently threw his hat into the ring, Oscar Isaac was on board for the Vogt-Roberts version, and we're happy to see Karl Urban show up just about anywhere. Hopefully we won't have to wait more than a couple more decades to find out.