David Hayter explains what happened to the Metal Gear Solid movie

Of all the video game movie projects out there to potentially be excited about, there are only a handful that would make a truly worthwhile film adaption. I would say GOD OF WAR and MASS EFFECT would be two of my top choices (films are in the works for both), but METAL GEAR SOLID is another extremely high on the list.

But in January, we heard that the movie was a no-go, and Solid Snake would not be coming to the big screen, at least not anytime soon. Well, last week MTV had screenwriter David Hayter on their blog as an editor, and he talked in depth about the project he has an extremely personal investment in, seeing as he’s the voice of Solid Snake himself.

“They’ve been trying to work out a deal between [creator Hideo Kojima] and [Sony],” he said. “A couple of years ago, a producer friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in doing the adaptation. And I said ‘Of course. I know it pretty well.’ I think I can say without contradiction that I know it better than any screenwriter on the planet. I’ve said every word that Snake has said. So I felt well-qualified.”

“I did come up with a pitch for the movie which I thought was pretty cool and I would still love to do. But there are far larger issues in terms of who’s going to get the rights to do it and what sort of involvement Mr. Kojima is going to have. All that needs to be worked out before I would ever come up.”

So the problem would seem to be with Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, who presumably wants massive creative control over the project, something the studio likely would not want him to have, as no deal can be reached between him and Sony. I’m not sure exactly why Sony thinks Kojima’s hand shouldn’t guide his own creation, but I suppose there is a difference between making an epic game and an epic movie.

But what if the studio took the chance? Maybe this is what the video game movie genre has been missing, as it has yet to produce a truly “good” installment. Yes, many movies consult the original game creators to a large extent (like recently with PRINCE OF PERSIA), but what if the game’s creators, writers and stars were given complete run of the land? At this point, I think it’d certainly be worth a try, and there’s no one better to test out that theory with than Hideo Kojima.