The brain-twisting sci-fi videogame Death Stranding is getting a film adaptation, although few details have been revealed so far. However, the creative lead for the game, Hideo Kojima, recently gave an interview with IGN where he revealed his intentions for the movie and explained his choice of producer:

Alex Lebovici is known for producing Bill and Ted Face the Music, Padre Pio, and Barbarian, the latter of which received rave reviews. While Kojima didn’t reveal the exact pitch Lebovici made to impress him, it’s clear that neither is trying to make a blockbuster. So it’s not surprising that one of today’s most “artsy” video game designers chose an “arthouse” approach for a film adaptation.

“I was on video calls with lots of people in Hollywood every week beginning last year, and not just for ‘Death Stranding’. I received a lot of offers, but my intention from the start was never to make a blockbuster film. Alex Lebovici from Hammerstone Studios shared my vision with regards to that. There were a lot of pitches to make a large-scale movie with famous actors and flashy explosions, but what good would explosions be in ‘Death Stranding’?… I’m aiming for a more arthouse approach, and the only person who offered to make a film like that was Alex Lebovici, which makes me think he’s a rather unusual type.”

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Film adaptations of video games historically haven’t done very well, a fact Kojima is well aware of. However, in recent years, a few have met success, such as Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel, Detective Pikachu, and the Netflix series Castlevania. As a result, Kojima says his adaptation will go in a direction never seen before:

While he’s still very tight-lipped about the details, it appears that the Death Stranding adaptation will not simply retell the events of the game but rather tell a different story in the same world. And it’s a crazy world, with rain that quickly ages anything it touches, invisible monsters called “B.T.’s” that devour humans, pod babies that help the humans detect B.T.’s, and corpses that cause massive explosions when not disposed of correctly.

“The failure of film adaptations of games from a while back has led to a lot of movies that cater to gamers, right? That’s why they have the same kind of look as a game. I don’t want the ‘Death Stranding’ movie to be like that. Rather, I’m taking the approach of changing and evolving the world of ‘Death Stranding’ in a way that suits film well. I made ‘Death Stranding’ to be a game, and games are games. There’s no real need to turn them into films. So in a way, the ‘Death Stranding’ movie is taking a direction that nobody has tried before with a movie adaptation of a game. I think that what I need to make is something that will inspire some of the people who watch it to become creators 10 or 20 years down the line.”

A release date for the Death Stranding movie has not yet been announced.

The video game was released in 2019 and starred Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Lea Seydoux, and Margaret Qualley. It was produced by Hideo Kojima’s own production company, Kojima Productions. A sequel, which does not yet have an official title but is referred to as Death Stranding 2, is currently in development.