Jordan Vogt-Roberts will be bringing Solid Snake to the big screens!
[dropcap size=small]K[/dropcap]ong: Skull Island and Kings of Summer director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ next project will see him work on making a film adaptation of the original 1998 Metal Gear Solid game.
The 32-year-old director – who is a passionate gamer who was first introduced to the world of gaming on the Atari – fought hard to make a film based on the iconic game series from Hideo Kojima.
In a phone interview with Glixel (via Rolling Stone), Vogt-Roberts explained that he wanted to be involved in removing the stigma associated with making films based on games:
“There’s generally sort of a stigma associating films with games and it’s generally not positive. I just really want to be a part of the wave of guys who completely flip that notion on its head and say, “Hey, these things are linked together and it’s a positive thing.”
The director then went on to explain that he had set his sights on the game series after making Kings of Summer, but was told in no uncertain terms that it “wasn’t for him”:
“I was sending the message that I wanted to do a big movie because I grew up on big movies. I was sitting in an executive’s room at Sony, and there was a Metal Gear Solid book on the table and I said, ‘Oh my God, you have Metal Gear?’ And they said, ‘Yeah but that’s not for you,’ more or less.”
Vogt-Roberts wasn’t about to give up though, and after deciding it was important enough to him, he continued to work towards making the adaptation come to fruition:
“You know what? This thing is so important to me I at least need to feel like I tried, that I did everything I could to try and make my version of the movie…I was even at a place where I was like, “I don’t care if they steal all of my ideas.” If I can at least have impacted this process in a positive way, I’m going to go for it.”
Kojima and the Kong: Skull Island director have been sighted together on several occasions, and Kojima even wrote an essay about Kong: Skull Island after the film’s release, to which Vogt-Roberts expressed his delight at seeing someone he admired so much deliver such a positive review of his own work.
“The thing that he wrote on Kong, I didn’t even know that he had seen the movie yet. I was trying to orchestrate a screening for him to see it and he ended up going early, and so when his review dropped, I was dumbfounded. That was maybe one of the single greatest moments of the release of this film for me – seeing someone whose work I admire so much and has had an intense influence on me write about my work in such a positive way. I was just so taken aback and honored.”
Had a deep talk about the future of the film with @VogtRoberts, the director of “Kong:Skull Island”. pic.twitter.com/BrqIMInibq
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) July 24, 2016
Throughout the interview, the director was certainly not short on compliments to throw Kojima’s way, and given that the Vogt-Roberts is undoubtedly a big fan of Kojima and his work, it’s not so surprising that he fought tooth and nail to be the one to make the film adaptation a reality.
Be sure to read the rest of the interview to gain more insight into Jordon Vogt-Roberts passion for gaming!
No release date for the film adaptation has been announced as of yet.
