Nach The Kings of Summer wurde Jordan Vogt-Roberts für die Regie des Metal Gear Solid Films verpflichtet. Kurz  danach  fing Vogt-Roberts an für Warner Kong: Skull Island zu machen. Jetzt, da der Film kurz vor dem Kino-Release steht (Kong: Skull Island startet am 9. März in den Kinos), hatte der Regisseur Zeit sich zu der Videospiel-Verfilmung zu äußern. Im Gespräch mit Collider gab Vogt-Roberts einige Infos preis. 

Das Metal Gear Solid Franchise ist wohl eines der beliebtes und ungewöhnlichsten der Videospiel-Historie. Die Spiele von Mastermind Hideo Kojima haben ein ganz eigenes Flair. Daher ist es Vogt-Roberts, dem das Projekt am Herzen zu liegen scheint, sehr bedacht darauf die Einzigartigkeit der Reihe einzufangen. 

“Metal Gear Solid is probably the most important franchise to me on the planet. It is such a genius, idiosyncratic work and being able to spend time with [Hideo] Kojima recently has been like a dream. He’s the best and his whole team is the best. We are working on the script. That is a property that I will fight tooth and nail to make sure is done properly because it’s so easy to screw it up and so easy for a studio to try and make it into G.I. Joe or try and make it into Mission: Impossible or try and make it into something that it’s not. Metal Gear Solid needs to be exactly what it needs to be, which is Metal Gear Solid.”

Einen ersten Eindruck, in welche Richtung der Metal Gear Solid Film gehen könnte, können sich die Zuschauer, laut Vogt-Roberts, bereits bei Kong: Skull Island holen. So soll auch in Kong: Skull Island die Stimmung zwischen bitterem Ernst und lustigem Slapstick wechseln. Etwas, was auch in der Metal Gear Reihe immer wieder auftrat.

"I actually think that when people see [Kong] they’ll realize like, ‘Oh tonally there are things that sort of line up with this’ where this can be incredibly serious and dark and intense or it can also be incredibly goofy and kind of take the piss out of itself and be slapstick at times, much like Metal Gear. Luckily there are amazing producers on it, but that’s a property that is so pure and important to my soul, because it’s something that I grew up on, that I would love to shepherd into the film that it needs to be. I think it’d be a massive film, I think it’d be an incredible film, but it needs to be done in a way that completely honors what Metal Gear is because it’s a classic and it’s a seminal work not just in video games, but in media.”

Ob der Film auf ein erwachsenes Publikum zielen wird oder auch jüngere Zuschauer ansprechen soll, konnte Vogt-Roberts noch nicht sagen. Obwohl Deadpool und Logan Filmemachern die Möglichkeit geben auch R-rated Blockbuster zu produzieren, kann er sich vorstellen, dass der Film auch mit einem PG-13 Rating funktionieren würde. Das PG-13 Rating würde zudem ein höheres Budget versprechen. 

“I think that for me, I want to make the version of the movie that is most true to what it needs to be, so if that is a Deadpool or Logan route where you go with a smaller budget and you’re able to make it R, great. If you need to blow it out more and really get that bigger budget and go PG-13, I think it could exist in both avenues. There are hyper-violent parts to Metal Gear but I would not necessarily call the hyper-violent part the core element of it versus like the tone and the voice and the philosophies that the characters exhibit. Those characters sort of are these walking philosophies, so I think nailing that part is far more important necessarily than thinking about the rating at this point, because right now we’re just trying to get the best version of it.”

Bevor er groß über Budget reden möchte, wäre ihm erstmal wichtig, dass das Drehbuch stimmt. Sein Ziel sei es, dass die Metal Gear Solid Fans abgeholt werden. Die Fans sollen sagen können "Sie haben es geschafft. Das ist mein Metal Gear." 

“I think right now the more important thing is let’s nail the voice, let’s nail a story that makes sense. You look at the scope of the Metal Gear world and you go all the way back to the ‘60s and before that in the lore, and then you go to the more contemporary games in the near-future and stuff like that, you’re dealing with decades and decades and decades of characters. You’re dealing with like okay how do Snake and Big Boss interact, how does Zero and all these other people interact with each other? How do you pick and choose the cyborg ninja and the sniper wolf and all these people and have them fit into a narrative that makes sense?”

"So first and foremost beyond thinking about budget, I wanna find the version that someone like you who’s like a superfan of this property would say, ‘They did it. That’s my Metal Gear. That’s my shit.’ "

Was ist eure Meinung zu Vogt-Roberts Vorhaben? Seid ihr optimistisch was den Metal Gear Solid Film angeht?