Death Stranding Creator Hideo Kojima Discusses His Hollywood Career (2024)

Death Stranding and Metal Gear's Hideo Kojima is about to take Hollywood by storm. The iconic video game creator, who recently signed with the Hollywood talent agency WME, discussed his plans for upcoming video games Death Stranding 2 and Physint, his Jordan Peele collaboration, and his Death Stranding movie adaptation.

In an interview with Variety, Kojima discussed what motivated him to forge closer ties with Hollywood going into the next stage of his illustrious career. "I made games at Konami for 30 years. Though I was offered a lot of work outside of the company to film commercials or films or write scripts, I couldn't do any of them because I was employed at Konami and was a board member as well," he said. "Also, the games that I made were not my IP; they belonged to the company. At the end of 2015, I went independent. Because I love movies, I could have gone on to shoot movies or commercials."

Kojima discussed establishing Death Stranding as a strong IP by expanding the franchise. The video game creator also has two other projects in the pipeline, including a game development collaboration with Peele, titled O.D. "Death Stranding as a standalone title is not enough to spread and establish the IP, so we are currently making a sequel. So, this is the first phase: to establish Death Stranding within the games category and expand on global platforms, like Apple, PC, and Sony. And from there, we are making a sequel," he explained.

Kojima continued, "At the same time, I wanted to do something new that wasn't Death Stranding, so I teamed up with Microsoft to create O.D. This is a game, but it's a game like no other. I can't go into too much detail, and it's also hard to explain, but it's a bit risky and a new challenge for me within the realm of games. There is also another project, Physint, an espionage game, but it's still in the early concept stage."

The second phase of Kojima's plan is to expand his video games into other media forms: movies, anime, and TV dramas. "I created Kojima Productions under the scope of 'digital entertainment,' but I don't think it necessarily has to be a video game (company)." Kojima also talked about the synergy between video game production and how other media content is crafted, meaning, now more than ever, operating in all areas is possible.

Kojima Delivers Death Stranding Movie Update

Kojima revealed there were several Death Stranding adaptation projects in various stages of development and that he had penned a story for a movie. "There are several Death Stranding adaptation projects currently underway, but there is a different story I've written that's intended for a movie," he said. "But I don't have the time to direct it, so I won't. Which is kind of like a test for the third phase. I'm in the second phase now and expanding the IP I made in all sorts of directions."

The Death Stranding creator continued, "But my other project, Physint, is like the gateway into the third phase. I'm trying to make it with people in filmmaking and industries outside of games. So, we may do a movie adaptation at the same time, but we will see. The assets are digital and can be used either way."

Kojima is a fan of the movie Nope, and is currently collaborating with its director Peele on his upcoming video game O.D. Apparently, Peele could be on a shortlist of filmmakers Kojima might tap to helm the Death Stranding movie. "It's not only Jordan, but I have a close relationship with directors like Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Winding Refn, and George Miller – who appear in Death Stranding – and we always talk about doing something together."

Source: Variety