The Case for Turning Metal Gear Solid into a TV Show
Why a TV series adaptation would be a better fit for the legendary video game franchise Metal Gear Solid, and how it could solve Hollywood's development challenges.
The Challenges of a Metal Gear Solid Movie
With frequent challenges impacting the development of a live-action Metal Gear Solid movie, Hollywood would be much better off changing its approach to bringing the live-action exploits of the legendary soldier Solid Snake to the screen.
Yoji Shinkawa's concept art of Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.
Based on the 1998 action video game of the same name, Metal Gear Solid sees seasoned soldier Solid Snake navigating the vast Alaskan compound known as Shadow Moses Island in an effort to stop international terrorist Liquid Snake from launching nuclear warheads. Rife with an incredible soundtrack, stellar voice acting, and challenging gameplay, Metal Gear Solid is a classic and one of game developer Hideo Kojima's best games.
Solid Snake aims his SOCOM pistol at Meryl in Metal Gear Solid.
Metal Gear Solid is also renowned in the gaming community for its cinematic approach to storytelling, lending itself to an adaptation. However, despite the anticipation for a Metal Gear Solid movie, the limited information about its development following its announcement of Oscar Isaac's Solid Snake casting in 2020 suggests audiences familiar with the source material will have to keep waiting.
Big Boss prepares to fight The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Considering the complex nature of Metal Gear Solid's storylines and its quirky sense of humor, it's understandable why a film is challenging to make. However, one simple change can solve Hollywood's Metal Gear Solid problem.
Snake holds an enemy soldier at knifepoint in a screenshot from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain demonstrating its updated interrogation system. The menu options "Call 'em" and "Spit it out" appear on screen.
Metal Gear Solid Should Be A TV Show, Not A Movie
Assuming the movie only covers Kojima's Metal Gear Solid, the issue lies in the fact that this isn't the first chronological game despite what its title suggests. Metal Gear Solid is preceded by Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. This puts a film adaptation in the uncomfortable position of wasting precious screen time advancing its plot in favor of expository dialogue that gets audiences up to speed on the events of its predecessors. A TV series would work better because the producers could split time between Metal Gear Solid's events and the events of the previous games more evenly.
Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher holding dogtags in the poster for Amazon's Reacher season 2
Another issue that a movie faces is having enough screen time to properly set up the events of future installments in the franchise. While Metal Gear Solid provides enough story and action for a single installment, certain characters and subplots that have greater significance in sequel games will feel weak in comparison to their video game counterparts. Metal Gear Solid is succeeded by four mainline games and a series of spinoffs, with each entry making direct references to the others. A trilogy can't adequately cover everything, let alone a single movie, but a TV series can adequately adapt all the games.
A guard inspects Solid Snake's Cardboard box in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Other TV Show Successes Prove Metal Gear Solid Would Work
Old Snake uses CQC against Liquid Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Why A Metal Gear Solid Movie Is So Difficult To Make
In addition to the overwhelming amount of context casual audiences would need to properly understand the world, a Metal Gear Solid movie is challenging to make because the events in the game itself are difficult to digest. Between the plot twists of Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid's main villain being clones of Big Boss, their surrogate father to a psychic being who can control gamers' controllers, there's simply too much to unpack in a standard 120-minute runtime.
Furthermore, Metal Gear Solid's dense storytelling and themes will isolate casual audiences expecting a Michael Bay-style war movie. The goal should be to win over newcomers, pulling more fans into the franchise.
With Metal Gear Solid's development woes, Hollywood seems to have taken a great interest in Kojima's Death Stranding, thus further complicating the movie's development. A24's Death Stranding movie's more digestible plot is going to fare far better with casual audiences than a Metal Gear Solid film can. Death Stranding is complex, but it's essentially a critique on America's most bizarre and erratic behavior in an alternate universe. Metal Gear Solid, on the other hand, features time paradoxes, super soldiers secretly related to one another, and a wealth of other things a movie wouldn't be able to cover as well as a TV series.
