Sony Announces Metal Gear Solid Film

Sony has announced that it will be bringing the hit Konami videogame franchise Metal Gear Solid to the big screen.

The announcement was made a Metal Gear Solid 25th anniversary event in Tokyo by the game’s creator Hideo Kojima, who also revealed that former Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad would be producing the project. Kojima will act as executive producer.

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeros, the new game

A potential Metal Gear Solid movie has been bubbling way since 2007, when producer Michael De Luca failed to get the project into production. This time, it looks like Sony is much keener to get the franchise in front of the camera.

A sequel to Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid was first released for the PlayStation in 1998. It follows Solid Snake, a retired soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons disposal facility to neutralise the terrorist threat from FOXHOUND, a renegade special forces unit. The game sold over six million copies worldwide and spawned a bunch of sequels, the most recent of which was Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of Patriots in 2008 (although there have been more sequels and spins-offs to the Metal Gear franchise not featuring Solid Snake since… in fact another game, Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeros, was announced at the same event where the film was announced).

So a film is all well and good and exciting for fans. And the cut scenes in MGS games are very cinematic. But let’s be honest, the actual storyline of Metal Gear Solid is a hotch potch of existing action movies anyway. Isn’t a film version in danger of looking like a by-the-numbers megamix?