Game designer Hideo Kojima may finally be ready to put all those Hollywood connections to use. The fiction visionary behind Metal Gear and Death Stranding says he’s interested in directing a film, something he’s obviously had a deep passion for his entire life (just look at his Twitter). But he’s got a few loose ends to tie up before taking that huge step into a new medium.
In an interview with magazine Le Film Francais following his Cannes Film Festival panel about the intersection of technology and storytelling, Kojima revealed that he wants to direct a film sooner rather than later. He’s currently involved in the production of the A24-produced Death Stranding film, and said that “the boundaries between cinema and video games are becoming increasingly blurred.” When asked if he’d continue this work after the film is finished, he said he would and has had the opportunity in the past.
“Oh, yes! I received many offers after leaving Konami, with serious conditions to develop games in my independent studio,” he told the magazine, as translated by ResetEra forum user Red Kong XIX. “I grew up with cinema. Directing would be a kind of homage to it. Besides, I’m getting older, and I would prefer to do it while still young.”
Kojima’s love of movies has essentially become an internet meme. His followers eagerly await his hilariously dry reviews of whatever movie he’s seen lately. He’s forever retweeting posts about the film industry or videos of him at movie premieres. And he’s always posting new photos of his in-person and virtual meet-ups with Hollywood’s most interesting stars. The fact that he makes games, let alone some of the most fascinating big-budget titles around, almost feels secondary to the joy he finds in movies.
Unfortunately, the start of such a project is a lot further away than we’d all hoped. Kojima would like to complete the games he currently working on before the pivot to make a film
“Besides Death Stranding 2, there is Physint in development,” Kojima said in the interview. “That will take me another five or six years. Maybe after that, I could finally decide to tackle a film.”
It’s not surprising to see him want to wrap things up in the video game sphere first. While Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is just a few weeks away, Physint is still very early on in production. Announced during the January 2024 State Of Play, the PlayStation-exclusive Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor will be a departure from the inspired oddities Kojima Productions has worked on since the creator’s departure from Konami. But it will also mark a grand return to the stealth action genre Kojima popularized.
Strangely, Kojima didn’t mention his ongoing work on OD, the Xbox-exclusive game that he revealed alongside director Jordan Peele at the 2023 Video Game Awards. At the time, Peele and Kojima revealed that several film stars, including Sophia Lillis (It), Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), and Udo Kier (Suspiria), were signed on to the project. However, we’ve heard little about it ever since. It wasn’t until late last year that Kojima mentioned that it was impacted by the ongoing Screen Actors Guild strike.
“For OD, we developed the game and had actor and environment scanning,” he explained. “In the second half of the year, scanning and filming were suspended due to the SAG strike. Casting was also suspended for Physint due to the strike.” He added that he hopes to see production resume in 2025.
At the very least, his ambitions to make movies give us a clear timeline of when to expect his next upcoming games. Assuming Kojima and his team hit their target, we can expect both OD and Physint to release sometime before 2031. Again, not anytime soon. But it’s the silver lining in all of this.
For now, Kojima has all of his attention focused on the release of Death Stranding 2. Just last week, he revealed some of the weird video game ideas he’s had over the years, including ones he scrapped from implementing in the upcoming sequel. He’s gone as far as preserving the ideas he feels most strongly about onto a USB drive that his staff can use after his death. The Death Stranding film is likely to be released before the creator’s next video game.
