When his video game hit “Death Stranding” came out in late 2019, visionary gaming brain Hideo Kojima announced that he also wanted to produce movies with his company Kojima Productions, which he founded in 2015. Now he really gets to work – and has just chosen that exceptional job for it (after no progress has been made with a film adaptation of the “Metal Gear Solid” series, which was once also conceived by Kojima but is no longer by him guided).
“Death Stranding” is filmed for the big screen. This is reported by the American trade magazine . Hideo Kojima himself will be heavily creatively involved in the adaptation as a producer. He is actively supported by producer Alex Lebovici and his Hammerstone Studios, who caused a stir this year, especially with the horror hype “Barbarian”, which will soon also be available in Germany (from December 28, 2022 on Disney +).
This is Death Stranding
With “Death Stranding”, Hideo Kojima created a very special gaming experience that largely escapes general genre attributions and is quite unique in the gaming world in this format segment. The game takes us to a dystopian future, where the event of the same name has lifted the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead, making large parts of the US uninhabitable. The protagonist is delivery driver Sam Porter Bridges, tasked with reconnecting disconnected nodes across the country, reuniting the populace and giving new hope.
The grandiose staging and the extraordinary mythology enriched with numerous bizarre and original ideas create a very unique atmosphere, which also touched millions of players around the world because of the terrifying parallels with the corona pandemic that started a little later (and also let the author of these lines enthusiastically immerse himself for countless hours in the terribly beautiful America of the future).
Direct edit or own story?
However, it is still unclear whether the film adaptation will follow the plot of the original. Bee however, it is suggested that we may also be dealing with another story with new characters in the same universe, so that the adaptation would not reproduce the well-known story, but rather expand the world – like the sequel “Death Stranding 2” recently announced at the Game Awards. And that would probably be the best approach, after all, the original is so cinematic that direct editing would actually be superfluous.
In this context, producer Alex Lebovici already revealed that the “Death Stranding” movie should be more intimate and grounded, i.e. apparently not as lavish as the underlying game: “Our goal is to redefine what a video game adaptation can look like as a you have creative and artistic freedom,” Lebovici added promisingly in an official statement, before going on to say, “This film will be an authentic Hideo Kojima production.”
Reunion with Norman Reedus and Co.?
The extent to which the Death Stranding movie follows the game could also determine whether we’ll see some of the game’s well-known cast return to the big screen. The main characters have already been embodied here by famous actors such as “Walking Dead” star Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux and filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn using performance capture. If their characters also appear in the film, it would be a great disappointment for all fans if they are suddenly brought to life by completely different actors and actresses.
However, it is not yet known who will star in the film adaptation of “Death Stranding”, or who will direct or contribute the screenplay. But it is precisely these personal details that must be entered as soon as possible in order to move the project forward as quickly as possible. It remains to be seen how quickly this will happen.
By the way, we don’t have to wait that long for the next adaptation of a popular PlayStation title, as the highly anticipated series “The Last Of Us” will begin on the night of January 15 to 16, 2023, which even though it has the potential to make the previously weak reputation of video game adaptations.