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SYFY WIRE Metal Gear Solid

Snaaaake! Oscar Isaac will play Solid Snake in the 'Metal Gear Solid' movie

By Matthew Jackson
Oscar Isaac

Get ready, Metal Gear fans, because Oscar Isaac is joining FOXHOUND. Deadline reports that Isaac is attached to star as Solid Snake in the long-developing Metal Gear Solid movie at Sony, adding another major genre role to an already illustrious career. 

Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has been developing the adaptation of the beloved stealth-action video game franchise created by Hideo Kojima for years now, and is still in the director's chair with Isaac on board. Jurassic World co-writer Derek Connolly has written the script, and Spider-Man force Avi Arad is on board as a producer. Though Vogt-Roberts has been sharing his ideas for the film in interviews and with fans for years, Metal Gear Solid was always waiting on a star. Now, a little more than a year after Isaac publicly threw his hat into the ring to play Solid Snake, it seems the potential franchise-launcher has its leading man. 

The history of the Metal Gear franchise dates all the way back to the original 1987 game, which follows Solid Snake as he attempts to infiltrate an enemy base and destroy the title weapon, a walking tank capable of starting a nuclear war. The game's stealth components and storytelling made it one of the most influential action games ever, and dozens of major and minor follow-ups have spun off from in the years since.

After the genre-defying follow-up Metal Gear Solid was released for PlayStation in 1998 the series' popularity exploded all over again, creating a franchise ripe for film adaptation. It's not clear at this point exactly how much Vogt-Roberts' film will pull from the source material beyond the plot of the first game, but there's certainly a vast mythology within the Metal Gear universe already just waiting to be mined. 

As for Isaac, Solid Snake is not just a dream come true and a bit of a called shot, but also the latest in a growing line of high-profile genre roles for him. After wrapping up his time as Poe Dameron in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, he's set to co-star next year as Duke Leto Atreides in Dune, and he's developing an adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan's superhero comic Ex Machina that he'd also like to star in. Throw in the news that he's apparently Marvel's choice to play Moon Knight, and you've got an extremely busy guy who still wants to make time for one of his favorite video game characters. 

Metal Gear Solid does not yet have a release date, but Isaac's casting is definitely going to put some momentum into a development process that has been meandering for years.