Metal Gear Solid movie gets unknown British writer

Finally the wheels are beginning to turn on the production of the Metal Gear Solid movie and it’s only taken nine years. Jay Basu, the British writer of upcoming Monsters: Dark Continent, is now on board for scriptwriting duties.

Basu is young and a relative unknown but was recently hired to help reboot Universal’s monster movies alongside Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley and The Amazing Spiderman writers Alec Kurtzman and Ed Solomon. He also made it as one of the runners up in the Brit List, a selection of the best unmade British screenplays so it looks like he’s just been waiting for a break like this one. It doesn’t come much bigger than the hopes and dreams of millions of passionate MGS fans either. No pressure, Jay.

In terms of previous movie work Basu was a co-writer on successful British drama Fast Girls alongside Kidulthood screenwriter Noel Clarke. He was also a co-writer on the rather less successful British found footage ‘Jurassic Park meets Cloverfield’ attempt, The Dinosaur Project, with a rather green 31% on Rotten Tomatoes but we all make mistakes.

The Metal Gear Solid movie is being produced by Marvel veterans Avi and Ari Arad and The Kings Of Summer’s Jordan Vogt-Roberts is listed on IMDB on direction duties. Hopefully now with a writer in place, we’ll start to see more updates and a cast list can start to come together. Kojima once expressed an interest in Hugh Jackman for the role but Avi Arad wanted a lesser known actor. Also it remains to be seen whether Kojima will be involved at all after the news of a new Metal Gear being announced by Konami without any sign of the man himself.

Louise Blain

Louise Blain is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in gaming, technology, and entertainment. She is the presenter of BBC Radio 3’s monthly Sound of Gaming show and has a weekly consumer tech slot on BBC Radio Scotland. She can also be found on BBC Radio 4, BBC Five Live, Netflix UK's YouTube Channel, and on The Evolution of Horror podcast. As well as her work on GamesRadar, Louise writes for NME, T3, and TechRadar. When she’s not working, you can probably find her watching horror movies or playing an Assassin’s Creed game and getting distracted by Photo Mode.