Jordan Vogt-Roberts has been hard at work on a script that would turn the popular Metal Gear Solid video game franchise into a big screen movie. However, it turns out that's not the only video game he has ideas for. Recently, the director of Kong: Skull Island revealed that he also has a pitch for a Metroid movie, though even he admits the likelihood of that one becoming real one day is pretty unlikely. According to Vogt-Roberts...
I have a pitch for a Metroid movie. They'll never let me do it. It's too crazy... It legitimately would be [Samus] alone. It would be a little bit of her talking to herself. As soon as they introduce other talking characters in those games, to me it loses everything. You put her alone and it's almost got a little bit more to do with the silence of a movie like Drive. Like the quietness and having it be like a real, intense mood piece, but mixed with sci-fi.
The vast majority of the Metroid video games don't have other characters of consequence other than Samus Aran, the protagonist who is controlled by the player. The games are traditionally a mix of third or first person shooting combined with platforming. As the player progresses through the alien world of the game, different weapons and items are obtained which can then be used to get to previously unreachable parts of the game world.
Jordan Vogt-Roberts tells IGN that he appreciates the isolation that comes from playing Metroid games, the feeling that you're alone in a very hostile place. He would love to make a movie that focused on that feeling of isolation. The only problem is that a movie that only had a single isolated character would have little to no dialogue, which is something most studios likely wouldn't be interested in. It's not that the movie wouldn't have people speaking, like A Quiet Place. Most Metroid games literally don't have another character for Samus to communicate with at all.
There have been games which changed up this formula, but as Jordan Vogt-Roberts says, those lose a lot. The less said about Metroid: Other M the better.
It certainly seems like getting a nearly silent Metroid movie greenlit would be a long shot at best. If you could get away with making it a small movie there might be a chance, but as the missile-blasting science fiction story that Metroid ultimately is, it would seem that a larger budget would be necessary.
Nintendo hasn't let its major properties be turned into movies since the abomination that was the Super Mario Bros. movie, but with the news that a new animated Mario Bros. movie is in development, perhaps conversations about a Metroid film could happen at some point. Though, even if that happens, it likely won't look like this.
