Hideo Kojima is Ready to Make a Big Transmedia Push

Players person known Hideo Kojima for years arsenic the guiding originative unit down Konami’s Metal Gear games and much recently Death Stranding. He’s built up a batch of goodwill and his profile’s gotten bigger and bigger, and present it seems similar he’s acceptable to currency it each successful truthful Kojima Productions has escaped reign to bash immoderate it pleases and spell beyond games.

In a caller Variety interview, Kojima talked astir his aboriginal vocation plans, and revealed immoderate absorbing details. There’s 3 phases to what helium wants to achieve: signifier 1 was to found Death Stranding as a large property, which did happen. The 2019 crippled was a captious and commercialized success, and presently has a sequel successful accumulation owed for 2025. Currently, he’s successful signifier two, which involves expanding his spot “in each sorts of directions,” namely different media similar anime and films. We already cognize Death Stranding has a movie successful the works implicit astatine A24, but that’s not the lone happening successful the works: “several” adaptation projects for the crippled are being made, helium said. The movie is conscionable taking halfway signifier astatine the infinitesimal due to the fact that he’s got a antithetic communicative successful caput for it that helium was natrually cryptic about.

What Kojima did uncover astir the Death Stranding movie is that helium won’t beryllium directing it, and neither volition Jordan Peele, his collaborator connected Xbox’s star-studded, mysterious task dubbed OD. Peele’s presently engaged doing his ain thing, but Kojima noted he’s got respective different Hollywood friends who whitethorn beryllium up to the task: Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Winding Refn, and George Miller were each sanction dropped, and helium told Variety they “always speech astir doing thing together.” (del Toro and Refn were featured successful the archetypal game, portion Miller’s likeness is utilized for a quality successful Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.)

And signifier three? Kojima wants to enactment with “talented radical from astir the world” to make thing marque caller and digitally-focused. “It could beryllium a movie, a game, oregon thing other entirely,” helium said to Variety. He considers the Death movie and his upcoming espionage game Physint arsenic gateways into what the 3rd portion of his maestro program volition look like. He’s already said he’s making connections successful movie and non-game industries to marque this a reality, which mightiness besides impact different movie adaptation. Either way, helium says the assets for this endeavor volition beryllium integer and successful mentation could beryllium utilized whichever way helium chooses.

The lone happening that’s stopping him is, frankly, time. Between the 3 games, the Death Stranding movie and different projects, the 61-year-old decorator said helium conscionable wants “to beryllium capable to bash everything that I privation to bash successful my remaining beingness without wasting time.” And beyond that, helium feels helium owes it successful immoderate mode to the radical who’ve contacted him to archer him however overmuch his enactment resonated with them. Those moments “make maine privation to walk the remainder of my beingness making things for radical similar that,” helium said. “I’m not a person oregon anyone successful a presumption to marque immoderate changes, but I privation to enactment radical with my work. Anything that I tin bash for those people, I privation to bash it.”

Variety’s afloat interrogation with Hideo Kojima tin beryllium work here.

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