Equilibrium writer targeted for MGS film

By Robert Purchese Published 14 March, 2008

Project back on track following strikes.

Kurt Wimmer is top of the list to write and presumably direct a Metal Gear Solid film.

Producer Michael De Luca told Coming Soon that he hopes to meet with Wimmer for talks in "the next few weeks".

De Luca was also keen to get the ball rolling with the MGS film now that the Writers Guild strikes have come to an end.

Kurt Wimmer was responsible for writing and directing stylised science-fiction thriller Equilibrium from 2003. Which was much better than his more recent film, Ultraviolet.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima confirmed a film was in the pipeline as far back as May 2006.

Perhaps Uwe Boll was too busy.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Rowlsten #1 4 years ago

    Do not f*ck this up..!

  • bad09 #2 4 years ago

    Do we really need a MGS movie? The games themselves play out like interactive movies, and are deeper story wise than any 90 minute movie could be. I can't see a live action movie doing anything the games can't.


    Besides watching codec messages on the big screen would really be dull! :0

  • MBar #3 4 years ago

    Uwe Boll

    Wanker!

    Sorry, impulse reaction.

  • Squire #4 4 years ago

    Equilibrium was awesome !
    MGS is awesome !

    What could possibly go wrong?

  • Kelduum #5 4 years ago

    Well, it could be SO awesome, that it goes beyond the scale of awesomeness and ends up being rubbish...

    Or it may just end up being rubbish.

  • ScarOnTheSky #6 4 years ago

    Damn it! I get the impression that Uwe Boll is the most well-known German in the UK and the US these days! Nobody here in Germany knows him!

  • Tomnd #7 4 years ago

    jeez its gonna be like 10 hours long and i bet snake won't even be in it.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 10:17

  • Jonsend #8 4 years ago

    Kurt Russell or fail!

  • Daymare #9 4 years ago

    They *could* pick some other (better) screenwriter..

  • Squire #10 4 years ago

    David Hayter himself could pull it off I think

  • Aretak #11 4 years ago

    Equilibrium is overrated and Ultraviolet is complete shit. Another promising game-to-movie adaptation then.

    And Sean Bean has the perfect look for the role of Snake. David Hayter simply has to dub whoever plays him though, if he's not in the running himself.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 10:41

  • Ranger101 #12 4 years ago

    "Equilibrium is overrated"

    Don't be ridiculous - Equilibrium was possibly one of the most underrated films ever. It hideously bombed everywhere it was screened, despite being pretty good. It only made some money back on DVD sales.

  • Aretak #13 4 years ago

    "Equilibrium was possibly one of the most underrated films ever."

    Nonsense. It's the staple film brought up online as a great example of modern sci-fi, when it's nowhere near good enough to be that. I neither know nor care how it performed on its original release (if it did bomb, that sounds about right to me), but now it's just horribly overexposed and overrated amongst the online film community.

  • bad09 #14 4 years ago

    @ Aretak

    In fairness it is quite a good movie, certainly not one of the most underrated movies ever but very watchable and worth a look at least.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 11:05

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #15 4 years ago

    I liked Equididdlybum, but not especially because of the script. It's just Farenheit 451 with added 'gun-kata'.

    Mind you, I hate Metal Gear Solid (and only about 50% because of the script, but that's another story) , so I probably won't be going to see this anyway.

  • TONYgr #16 4 years ago

    nicely said WIRED PROTOCOL!kitamura would be a perfect choice!after all he directed twin snakes and most of his movies ROCKS!!
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 11:49

  • Skeletor #17 4 years ago

    Kurt Wimmer is the right man for an MGS film because he prooved with Equilibrium that he can pull off a very stylish action movie on a rather moderate budget. Equilibrium was WAY BETTER than Matrix 2, which was released at roughly the same time, while being produced at a fraction of the budget for Matrix 2. Ultraviolet turned out bad because the suits at sony ruined the film by forcing Wimmer to cut and alter large chunks of the film and the whole story.

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #18 4 years ago

    Equilibrium was sub-standard generic sci-fi dross. Part 1984, part Matrix, all crappy. From the opening shot of them torching the Mona Lisa, to the strangly emotional Taye Diggs (did he read the bit where it said NO emotions?), to the god awful 'Look, he loves a puppy so he MUST be feeling' bit, to the point Brian "What the fuck are you doing in this film?!" Conley shows up. Shite.

    "Equilibrium was WAY BETTER than Matrix 2"

    So is a lapdance from Barbara Cartland. Still wouldn't want to sit through more that 10 secs of it.

    Seriously, Equilibrium is one of those films touted as good by folk who think Event Horizon is a masterpiece.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 12:45

  • Skeletor #19 4 years ago

    Both Event Horizon and Equilibrium are well done from a technical point of view and that's exactly what counts here. Konami isn't looking for the next Kubrick here, they want an aesthetically skilled and genre experienced director who knows the drill and doesn't have a problem with what will surely be a rather medium sized budget.
    Btw, your lapdance analogy is just plain stupid...I guess Pac Man ate your logic too.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 13:11

  • Muddtallica #20 4 years ago

    Even though I find the prospect of an MGS film conceptually redundant - the dialogue and story sequences were executed in the format of a film anyway - if we are to get one, I certainly wouldn't want Ryuhei Kitamura within ten miles of it. His over-directed cutscenes were one of the things I disliked most about Twin Snakes; extravagant action scenes are all well and good, but not when they jar horribly with the established tone, style, and worst of all, characterisation.

    As for casting, my votes would have to go to Rupert Everett as Liquid Snake, Queen Latifah as Vulcan Raven, and Brian Blessed as The End (or, failing that, as anyone). They can work their way up from there.

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #21 4 years ago

    "Both Event Horizon and Equilibrium are well done from a technical point of view and that's exactly what counts here."

    That's as maybe but both Event Horizon and Equilibrium bombed spectacularly both in the US and internationally making back with the former making back less than 50% and the latter 20% of their respective budget (and that's before P&A) so I'm not sure Konami are looking for the same here. Ultraviolet only just scrapped back it's budget thanks to the overseas market.

    It doesn't matter what the film looks like, it's whether it can be made a compelling enough offering to attract punters into the cinema, raise the profile of the brand and make money.

    If all you are doing is appealing to the fanboys then what's the fucking point of making it?

    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 13:34

  • RazorObsession #22 4 years ago

    Equilibrium was a great movie, better than matrix 2 onwards, special effects were quite good, surprisingly good cast (Christian Bale rocks in pretty much every single thing he has ever been in, Sean Bean was Boromirtastic, Sean Pertwee was good, Taye Diggs was ace, Robert the Bruce off brave heart and two of the dudes from prison break in minor blink and you'll miss em roles), great idea concepts (gun-kata, population controlled through drug use etc), and fantastic fight scene choreography. all with a tiny budget, as a film student i was impressed.

    Ultra violet on the other hand was a great big steaming pile of poo.

    plus the subject matter is a video game, this doesn't bode well.

  • skillian #23 4 years ago

    If all you are doing is appealing to the fanboys then what's the fucking point of making it?

    All these game-based movies are just appealing to the fanboys. Why else would anyone go and see a substandard action movie with 80s sensibilities, which is invariable what these films all turn out to be? And with the writer of Equilibrium on board, I can't imagine this one will be much different.

  • Skeletor #24 4 years ago

    "That's as maybe but both Event Horizon and Equilibrium bombed spectacularly both in the US and internationally making back with the former making back less than 50% and the latter 20% of their respective budget (and that's before P&A)..."

    While I can't check your numbers I'm pretty sure that both did very well (considering that both films had rather small budgets) on DVD. Especially Equilibrium did definitely NOT bomb as rental or retail DVD and there's even a beautiful japanese HD-DVD out there. DVDs (including Blu-Ray of course) are where the profit is when it comes to game adaptations.

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #25 4 years ago

    "While I can't check your numbers I'm pretty sure that both did very well (considering that both films had rather small budgets) on DVD. Especially Equilibrium did definitely NOT bomb as rental or retail DVD and there's even a beautiful japanese HD-DVD out there. DVDs (including Blu-Ray of course) are where the profit is when it comes to game adaptations."

    Equilbrium was made for approx. $20-25m and made back $5m at the box office, Event Horizon was made for approx. $60-65m and took $30m.

    You are correct that DVDs are where the profits come for the vast majority of films but you expect to make back your shooting budget at the very least from box office. If not then no matter how well it does on DVD you are up against it as the box office dictates how much TV sales etc are worth. These films needed to make $20m alone on DVD/VoD/TV sales just to break even, and as I said before that's before prints and advertising costs.

    They will, more than likely, break even in the long run (even Waterworld has ended up making a profit) and could well be in money now but that's still very far from being a success story.
    Edited by 1 at 14/03/08 @ 14:38

  • wonton #26 4 years ago

    Ultraviolet was really bad, tried so hard to be all martixy and it ended up irritating me. Plus i lost track of the plot anyway.

  • anephric #27 4 years ago

    Kurt Wimmer is a buffoon. He can't write for toffee. Are you mental?

  • DrKuK #28 4 years ago

    Equilibrium is one of my all time favourite films. I watched it in the cinema when it first came out and loved it. Yeah it aint exactly cerebral and the corny moments are just embarassing. The plot is pretty ridiculous and most of the acting is hammy. But "grammaton cleric" i mean you cannot come up with a better title than that.

    I'm not gonna bother intellectualising it or giving it the status of best sci fi flick ever etc etc, all i know is i loved it and i bought the DVD. so long as wotsisface does his homework and swots up on MGS back story i reckon he'll do a good job. MGS itself is overly dramatic and bombastic, it doesnt need some highbrow director f***ing it up and turning it into brokeback mountain or whatever rubbish won the oscars this year. So long as the action is as good as Kojima's cut scenes and the characters are true to their gaming heritage it will do for me.

  • Cougar #29 4 years ago

    Hideo has said before he'd never let Uwe Boll touch MGS so why even mention him?
    David Hayter, who does Snake's voice btw, is a writer(X-men 1 and 2), director and actor himself. He also knows the characters and story extremely well. He's said he'd love to do it and has played through all the games, even more then once. He couldn't possibly be more perfect. Harry Gregson-Williams should also do the score. Where else would you get this opportunity?

  • huxathon #30 4 years ago

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=45RrpygZp1E

  • Rosseh #31 4 years ago

    "It doesn't matter what the film looks like, it's whether it can be made a compelling enough offering to attract punters into the cinema, raise the profile of the brand and make money.

    If all you are doing is appealing to the fanboys then what's the fucking point of making it?"

    So it doesn't matter about making a film you're proud of? Jesus, you have been swallowed up by the industry. Some of the best films have flopped financially. Sounds like your media course took away your love of film. Good luck as a producer.