Posted in: TV | Tagged: death stranding, guillermo del toro, hideo kojima, Kojima Productions, lea seydoux, Mads Mikkelson, norman reedus, sony

Kojima Productions Sets Up Film, TV & Music Divisions in Hollywood

Published Tue, 23 Nov 2021 12:07:12 -0600

by Adi Tantimedh

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Kojima Productions, the company formed by video game auteur Hideo Kojima after he left Konami, is launching a new Hollywood division focused on music, TV, and film, a move that surprises no one. This is really a no-brainer considering that Kojima always developed his games as if they were massive AAA Hollywood blockbusters, their plots and tropes drawing on movies like Terminator, Blade Runner, Mad Max, and just about every major geeky movie you can think of and every director you can think of, from James Cameron to Ridley Scott to George Miller. If you read Kojima's book of essays The Creative Gene where he talks about the movies and books that influenced him and his process, you would wonder why it took him so long to set up a movie production company.

Deadline reported on Monday that Kojima Productions announced on Twitter that it will open a new business division in Los Angeles, in the heart of Hollywood, the capital of the movie and TV business. The branch will bring the studios' games to other entertainment areas. Riley Russell, formerly of Playstation, will lead the new team.

"The new division will be tasked with working with creative and talented professionals in television, music, and film, as well as the more familiar games industry," Russell said. "The team has as its charter, the goal of expanding the reach and awareness of the properties now under development at Kojima Productions and to make them more a part of our popular culture. Although we are a global organization, the new business development team will be centered in Los Angeles, CA. We are truly excited and looking forward to working with the very best entertainment talent we can, across all of the entertainment industries."

Even before the launch of the new entertainment-focused branch, Kojima Productions has already courted major Hollywood figures like The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus, who was cast as the lead in Kojima's 2019 game Death Stranding, which earned him a "best performance" honor at the 2019 Game Awards. The game also featured Guillermo Del Toro, Margaret Qualley, Mads Mikkelsen, and Léa Seydoux – you couldn't get a louder signal that Kojima had major Hollywood filmmaking ambitions than that if you missed the production values and plots of pretty much all of his previous video games.

Last year, Deadline reported that a movie based on Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid was being developed with Oscar Isaac signed on to play Solid Snake. So far, there is no word about who would be playing Hal Emmerich aka Otacon, the partner who gets to shout "Snake? Snake! Snaaaaaaaaaake!" whenever Snake gets killed in-game.

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