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With video game movies finally taking off in Hollywood, you'd think a Metal Gear Solid movie would be a no-brainer.  In fact, almost two years ago, I spoke to producer Mike De Luca about the MGS movie and at that time he was developing the project at Sony and things sounded like they were moving forward at a "solid" pace.

Cut to today.

A few days ago I spoke to De Luca for almost an hour about a variety of subjects, one of which was Metal Gear Solid.  According to De Luca, the Metal Gear Solid movie is no longer happening.  He explains why after the jump:

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The first thing you need to know before going any further is things change all the time in Hollywood.  While De Luca told me, "I don't think it's going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made," that doesn't mean it's dead forever.  Perhaps if Prince of Persia does extremely well for Walt Disney, Sony and Konami might sit back down and try to get this movie made one more time.  But for now, it isn't happening.

The way De Luca spoke, it seems like Sony tried extremely hard to get this project off the ground, but the video game makers might have been the culprit.  He says:

"[T]he video game companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard. And in the case of Metal Gear Solid, the agendas just....not because the parties weren't amicable, it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up."

Again, I think if the upcoming video game movies make huge money, every studio and video game company are going to reexamine their properties to see what they can turn into box office gold.

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Here's the full transcript of our conversation regarding Metal Gear Solid.  Look for more of my conversation with De Luca tomorrow night.

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Collider: We talked a long time ago about Metal Gear Solid.

De Luca: Right.

Do you think that project is ever going to move forward or what's the status of that thing?

De Luca: I don't think it's going to move forward because I got the sense that there may not be enough of a coordinated will at this point on the side of certain parties to see a movie get made. And I get it because the problem with a lot of these adaptations is it's such a huge franchise for the video game company. A movie can only hurt. If the movie's great, you're probably not going to sell more games. It's such a separate thing. The franchise being as big as it kind of helps the movie...I'm not sure the movie does the same thing for the game.

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Well, what's interesting though...not to interrupt you but there's a lot of video game movies in development right now. And you'd think that Metal Gear is such a huge franchise that it's almost like...and it's a cool character and a cool universe. You'd almost think it's a no-brainer.

De Luca: I think there's some things...the video game companies are very protective of their property and there are certain things a studio requires freedom-wise to market and distribute a movie effectively in a global marketplace and sometimes getting those two things to match up is really hard. And in the case of Metal Gear Solid, the agendas just....not because the parties weren't amicable, it was just kind of impossible to get the agendas to match up.

Well, let me ask you this: was it ever close to happening do you think? Or was it sort of like two ships in the night that are just passing each other?

De Luca: It was more like two ships in the night, unfortunately, on this one.

Finally, here's an interview I did with Hideo Kojima about the Metal Gear Solid movie.  It was awhile ago, but it was still very cool to talk with him.

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