There's been talk of a feature-film adaptation of Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear video-game franchise for well over a decade, but the project hasn't exactly taken off in a timely fashion. KONG: SKULL ISLAND director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has been attached to helm the film for several years with JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM screenwriter Derek Connolly penning the script. While speaking with Collider last year, Vogt-Roberts said that they were in the midst of revising the script for Sony Pictures, but that he was quite pleased with how it's shaping up.
Even if I wasn’t involved in this movie I would read that script and say, ‘Holy shit.' It represents a different approach to a video game movie. It represents a different approach to how a three-act structure is put on screen.
As I'm not exactly a video-game guy and I haven't played any installments of the Metal Gear series, I know next to nothing about the characters and story of the long-running franchise. After reading a little about the series, I was incredibly surprised at how expansive and bizarre Metal Gear really is; certainly far different from I had foolishly assumed was simply a stealth/adventure game. Jordan Vogt-Roberts obviously knows much more of the franchise than I do, and it seems as though he's ready to fully embrace the weirdness of Metal Gear. "I think there’s a way to lean into all of the oddities and the quirks and the idiosyncrasies of Metal Gear—and people forget Metal Gear is goofy. It’s filled with like military surrealism, it’s filled with these walking, talking philosophical ideologies of characters, it’s filled with almost horror tones at times—and that’s all in this container of this sort of super serious military game," Vogt-Roberts said. "I think finding the right access point and leaning into all of those things that appeal to the hardcore, I think that’s a way to translate that stuff and those end up being the things that a general audience falls in love with. Instead of being afraid of them, instead of running away from all those oddities and those quirks, those are Metal Gear."
As we know, feature-film adaptations of video-games are notoriously difficult to get right, but Jordan Vogt-Roberts is determined to buck the trend, saying that he hopes his Metal Gear film is "the first great video game movie where it doesn’t matter that it’s based on a video game." As other video-game movies have failed to deliver on that promise again and again, I'm not about to hold my breath, but you can't deny how passionate Vogt-Roberts is about the project.
We have to work that much harder to make a film that touches people in the same way that you and I as kids were like, blown away by it. To me, Metal Gear Solid is that. Hideo Kojima’s world is that. So hell or high water I will be fighting for this thing the rest of my life to not only shepherd the best version of it on-screen, but just because I genuinely believe it’s a world that people are ready to see. And that by leaning into all the crazy things that people may say, ‘Whoa, you can’t adapt a Metal Gear movie because of this, this, and this.’ I actually believe that, that, that, and that is how you make the rest of the world fall in love with it.
Solid Snake is one of the main protagonists of the Metal Gear franchise. Extremely intelligent, battle-hardened, and highly-skilled, Snake is often sent on stealth and espionage missions which find him tasked with destroying various models of the mecha known as Metal Gear, which are essentially a bipedal nuclear weapons-equipped tank. There have been several actors brought up in regards to the Solid Snake role over the years, including Hugh Jackman (LOGAN) and Christian Bale (VICE), but let's see who else might be a good fit. I'll toss out a few suggestions to get you started. Oscar Isaac (STAR WARS: EPISODE IX) recently threw his hat into the ring when asked which video-game film he'd like to be a part of, and Jordan Vogt-Roberts responded by saying, "The full process required to cast an icon hasn’t even started, but … The ball’s in Oscar’s court." I could also see Karl Urban (STAR TREK BEYOND) being a good fit for the role, especially as he already has experience playing the gruff gunslinger type in DREDD. As for my final suggestion, I came close to suggesting Scott Eastwood (PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING), but I've just never been impressed by his acting, so I'll go with another offspring of a cinematic legend instead, Wyatt Russell (OVERLORD).
Remember, you're free to suggest anyone in the comments, so let your inner casting director run wild!
Previously on Cast This, you were asked to fill the role of Green Goblin, one of Spider-Man's most infamous foes who will inevitably return to the big-screen once again. As usual, you came through with plenty of awesome suggestions for the role, including Gary Oldman (DARKEST HOUR), Crispin Glover (American Gods), and Nicolas Cage (MANDY).