Though he's rather hush-hush when it comes to concrete details about the 2009 Metal Gear Solid movie, producer Michael De Luca's interview at Collider is still well worth reading for Hideo Kojima's legion of stealth-action fans.
The biggest takeaway is simply a feeling that the movie is in good hands. Through quotes like the below, De Luca gives off the impression that he understands and cares about the subject material:
What makes video games fun is that you get to be the character and you’re sitting there ruling the universe and it’s a really first person interactive experience. When you’re in your theatre seat, you’re stuck with these subjective versions of the story and the game from a director or the writer’s point of view. You can’t interact with what’s going on so whatever turns you on about the game, you’re immediately disadvantaged in the theatre because you’re not feeling anything, which I think ups the ante for how good the story has to be and how good the movie has to be because we’re going in at a disadvantage that you’re not going to get the excitement or the adrenaline rush of doing it yourself, so we have to do it for you in a way that makes up for that
[...] in this one, the kind of Cain and Able story between Solid Snake and Liquid Snake and their relationship with their father and the storyline of Metal Gear Solid 4 has the makings….there’s so much story in Metal Gear as opposed to other video games that I think it’s going to be a challenge, but it’s an upscale problem to have so much thematic subtexts and story material to draw from, so I think we have a leg up already in that it’s such a rich universe and Kojima is like George Lucas in terms of creating this universe so what it says about war by proxy in this kind of future where war has been outsourced to private companies I think can be almost very topical and also kind of satirical in like a “Robocop” kind of way, so I think if we can get a script that honors the storyline of all 4 games, but that also has a cinematic aesthetic you know the kind of aesthetic Verhoeven brought to “Robocop” or the kind of aesthetic the Wachowski’s brought to “The Matrix”.
In related news, IMDB needs to update its Metal Gear Solid movie entry, as De Luca seems to suggest in the interview that Kurt Wimmer's appointment as director was a little premature.
Image credit goes to mgs.moviechronicles.com, and thanks to Kotaku for directing our eyeballs.
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