Here’s a lit­tle tid­bit of news we missed, back in an inter­view in 2006 Hideo Kojima announced that he thought Lord of the Rings star, Viggo Mortensen, would be the per­fect role as Snake.

Hideo Kojima : ‘It’s going to be a Hol­ly­wood film. It won’t be that Ger­man direc­tor [Uwe Boll]. Viggo Mortensen would make a per­fect Snake, but maybe he’s a lit­tle too old. Metal Gear Solid, which was set in Alaska, would make a per­fect set­ting for the movie.’

Source: Jeux France

The first and most impor­tant thing to note: this video is fan made and is not in any way an offi­cial movie pro­duc­tion. Phil­an­thropy is a well organ­ised live action effort to pro­duce an MGS movie and this, the trailer for which, is the fruit of their offerings.

I have taken the time to include this movie here because it illus­trates the poten­tial that an offi­cial Hol­ly­wood live action adap­ta­tion can achieve, when such high stan­dard fan-made work can be cre­ated with the lowli­est of budgets.

“After a full year’s efforts, a year full of patience and growth, The Hive Divi­sion is happy to share with all of our Inter­net friends the first trailer of Phil­an­thropy. The project has been a part of our lives for more than four years, and in those four years, the aims that it rep­re­sents and the dreams that it embod­ies have grown along­side us.
This trailer is an exam­ple of what we want to share with all of you who have fol­lowed us until now, you who have aspired as we have, as film­mak­ers, as videogame fans, or as indi­vid­u­als fas­ci­nated by the poten­tial dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy offers to any­one with a strong idea and a will brave enough to fol­low it.”

8 months later, on 8th Feb­ru­ary 2007 Vari­ety reported that Colum­bia Pic­tures, owned by Sony Pic­tures Enter­tain­ment were “bring­ing hit vidgame fran­chise “Metal Gear Solid” to the bigscreen.”

With the announce­ment came the news of Michael De Luca’s inolv­ment as a pro­ducer — pre­vi­ous works have included Amer­i­can His­tory X, Blade II and Mag­no­lia. Video game cre­ator Hideo Kojima will act as exec­u­tive pro­ducer, over­see­ing the project.

Yair Lan­dau, Sony chair, con­firmed it was in the works fol­low­ing his keynote speech Thurs­day at the DICE vidgame con­fab in Las Vegas — to quote, “It’s a very cin­e­matic game, it really lends itself to movie telling. But the ques­tion is, ‘How do you trans­late Snake’s expe­ri­ence into a full arc that con­forms to what audi­ences expect on the large screen?”

Doug Bel­grad, an exec­u­tive involved with final­is­ing the deal (the other being Sam Dick­er­man) states that MGS is “loaded with well-developed, intrigu­ing char­ac­ters and one of the first games to ever use cin­e­matic tools in its sto­ry­telling.” The deal is sup­pos­edly near completion.

As it stands, the IMDB page pens a 2009 release date.

Firstly on April 28th in a pod­cast, then on May 10th 2006 at the last E3 expo Metal Gear Solid cre­ator (amidst rumors), Hideo Kojima, made the announce­ment that a feature-length film adap­ta­tion of the pop­u­lar series was in development:

“I have received many offers to adapt Metal Gear Solid. It has taken a long time, but we have finally set­tled on an arrange­ment. False facts aside, a movie project is under­way. I have final­ized a Class-A con­tract with a party in Hol­ly­wood.” Source.

Dur­ing this time rumors were abound that the atro­cious and piti­ful direc­tor Uwe Boll (Alone in the Dark, Postal) was some­how involved. At the announce­ment these rumors were quashed, Ger­man direc­tor Uwe Boll will not have any­thing to do with the project — “it’s impos­si­ble we’d ever do a movie with him”.

View the orig­i­nal arti­cle
An image ver­sion of this arti­cle, saved for pros­per­ity, can be found here.
Lis­ten to the orig­i­nal pod­cast here. (HIDECHAN! ラジオ　第53回 （06.04.28）)