"Metal Gear Solid" film: Sony pulls new directors out of the box after 20 years

Luca Fontana

13.4.2026

Translation: machine translated

Oscar Isaac was supposed to play Solid Snake. Then what happened with "Metal Gear Solid" for years happened: nothing. Now Sony is trying again - with Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the creators of "Final Destination: Bloodlines".

If you've been hoping for a sign of life from the «Metal Gear Solid» film in recent years, you've needed one thing above all: patience. A lot of patience. But now, after a long period of silence, the project is back - with a new director and a new attempt at Sony. This is reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, the duo behind «Final Destination: Bloodlines», will be behind the camera. The 2025 horror hit grossed around 317 million dollars worldwide - on a budget of around 50 million. This makes «Bloodlines» the most commercially successful instalment in the series. And no other «Final Destination» film has ever fared better in the reviews.

Enough of a push, then, for Sony to sign the pair up for several upcoming projects - including «Metal Gear Solid».

According to the Hollywood Reporter «, Lipovsky and Stein want to make incredibly funny, commercially successful, character-driven and genre-bending» films via their newly founded production company Wonderlab. Finally, someone in Hollywood has cracked the formula. Who would have ever thought of that.

A film that is older than some of its fans

More exciting than the PR blah-blah of the Sony deal, however, is the back story. Hideo Kojima, creator of the «Metal Gear» series, announced a film adaptation back in 2006, with Sony Pictures getting on board shortly afterwards.

Then followed: a rejected script by Snake voice David Hayter, an intended director named Kurt Wimmer, a break, a 2012 reboot with Marvel veteran Avi Arad as producer, talks with J.J. Abrams, dream casts from Hugh Jackman to Christian Bale - and finally the signing of «Kong: Skull Island» director Jordan Vogt-Roberts in 2014.

Vogt-Roberts was the ideal casting for many fans. An avowed Kojima disciple, he even named a boat after the Metal Gear character Gray Fox in «Kong: Skull Island». In December 2020, the breakthrough finally seemed to have arrived: Deadline even reported that Oscar Isaac would play Solid Snake. Then nothing happened. Or rather, what always happens in such cases. Script problems, delays, pandemic, strikes and radio silence. Until it was reported in 2024 that Isaac had dropped out again.

So now the next attempt - and with it the quiet end of Vogt-Roberts' favourite project. It remains to be seen whether Lipovsky and Stein will pick up on Isaac and the existing script by Derek Connolly or start from scratch. The film will continue to be produced by father-son team Avi and Ari Arad at Columbia Pictures.

Here's to a new one!

The fact that there is any movement at all after 20 years of development hell is news in itself. Whether this will actually result in a cinema release is another matter.

In any case, the stakes are high: «Metal Gear Solid» is not just any stealth game. It is one of the most influential works in video game history with a narrative style that was already more cinematic than most action films of the time back in 1998. But therein lies the difficulty. What works in the game cannot simply be transferred 1:1 to the big screen.

Maybe it will help that the new directors have proven with «Final Destination: Bloodlines» how to get something out of a brand that has been declared dead. Solid Snake would be in good company.

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.

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