Avi Arad to apparently produce "Metal Gear Solid" movie

Avi Arad panders to the crowd as Hideo Kojima looks on

If there's one video game series you can point to that started the cinematic trend in video games, it would have to be "Metal Gear Solid". And now, after a few false starts over the last few years, there seems to be a big push to bring Metal Gear to the big screen. Brought to you by Avi Arad and Sony Pictures.

Now, when most people think about Avi Arad, they think "Spider-Man" and Marvel. He says the right things, but if you wade through all his bullsh*t, it's kind of obvious he has no idea what he's talking about much of the time. He seems to be a guy who picks up existing properties and then exploits them to the highest degree. The man brought "Bratz" to movie screens, for f*ck's sake. Bratz. Why? Why would you even think about doing something like this? He's also the man who forced Sam Raimi to put Venom in Spider-Man 3, despite Raimi's clear disdain for the character.

But in an incredibly pandering move, he claimed at the Metal Gear 25th Anniversary event last night that he feels that video games are today's comic books. (I still feel like comic books are today's comic books, but whatever.) And as such, he's devoting himself to bring excellent video game movies to the big screen since he's currently attached to "Uncharted" and "Mass Effect" movies that are about as far away from release as possible.

For now, I'll reserve judgment. Having played the original Metal Gear Solid over again a few months ago, while the story is very cinematic, it's also obscenely cliched and over the top. They would really have to rein in a lot of that to make a successful movie. Either that or put Venom in it. That solves all problems.


(via)