He might be 61, but Kojima still wants to be a director when he grows up.
There is, as ever, a lot going on in the world of Hideo Kojima. In an interview published in a recent issue of French film magazine Le Film Français, Kojima spoke about his ongoing projects (via VGC): There’s Death Stranding 2. There’s the Death Stranding film adaptation in production at A24. And of course, there’s Physint, Kojima’s upcoming return to the tactical espionage action that secured his global reputation.
Unfortunately, Kojima told Le Film Français that it’ll probably take the better part of a decade before we can play his Metal Gear successor. “Besides Death Stranding 2, there is Physint in development,” Kojima said. “That will take me another five or six years.”
Once Physint is squared away, however, Kojima told Le Film Français that he might finally turn his attention to directing a movie of his own.
“Maybe after that, I could finally decide to tackle a film,” Kojima said.
During Physint’s announcement at the January 2024 PlayStation State of Play, Kojima said Physint would be a “next-generation action espionage game” that is “also a movie at the same time in terms of look, story, theme, cast, acting, fashion and sound.” Action espionage? Basically a movie? Inevitably wild casting and fashion choices? That checks all the Metal Gear boxes. (They’re cardboard boxes, presumably.)
According to Kojima, we shouldn’t be surprised to hear it, because he said in February 2024 chat that he’s making Physint because we all kept demanding more Metal Gear. That’s an interesting quote in retrospect now that we know Kojima Productions was already busy turning Death Stranding 2 into Metal Gear anyway, but I’m not complaining about a surplus of hypercompetent bandana-clad stealth goofballs.
What’s curious about Kojima’s conversation with Le Film Français is that he didn’t mention OD, the horror game announced in 2023 as a collaboration between Kojima and Jordan Peele. Similar to Physint, Kojima described OD as a game that’s “at the same time a movie, but at the same time a new form of media.”
In January 2025, Kojima said that the productions of both OD and Physint had been suspended in 2024 because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Kojima clearly seems willing to acknowledge Physint’s ongoing development, but OD’s current status is unclear.
If he does make an eventual pivot to directing movies, Kojima said it’ll be the culmination of a life-long fascination.
“I grew up with cinema. Directing would be a kind of homage to it,” Kojima said. “Besides, I’m getting older, and I would prefer to do it while still young.”
Kojima’s currently a spry 61 years old, and he’s spent those six youthful decades as an open and unabashed movie nerd. It’s hard to miss: Most of his oeuvre is a pastiche of 90s techno-thrillers, and he’s been cramming familiar actors and directors into his game casts ever since his production budgets have supported it.
My only concern about Kojima’s directorial debut is what kind of runtimes he’ll subject theater audiences to. If Death Stranding had about four and half movies’ worth of cutscenes in it, how long are his movies going to be if there isn’t any pesky gameplay to get in the way?
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