Oscar Isaac To Star As Solid Snake In Sony’s ‘Metal Gear Solid’ Movie

Seems a bit small (physically speaking) to play the part, but hey. Acting and movie magic.

I have difficulty believing a Metal Gear movie is going to make much money no matter who they stick in the lead role.

What an amazing disaster this is going to be.

He's a talented guy but would not be my first choice. Not only is Solid Snake a physical presence, but he has a very different energy than Isaac projects in most of his roles. Even when he's menacing he has a sort of goofiness and openness to him, while Snake is totally closed off.

Obviously the best actor to play Solid Snake would be Kurt Russell 30 years ago (since Snake is explicitly at least partly modeled after Snake Plissken) but of actors currently out there today I'd go for someone like Jeremy Renner or heck even a Jake Gyllenhaal type. Someone who has the physicality and can project that sort of charismatic steeliness that Snake is known for.

I like Oscar Isaac, and that's a role he could probably pull off.

But video game movies based on AAA properties actually happening, between this and Uncharted is... strange to comprehend.

Screw it. It's not like the franchise gets scorched by a bad movie. I'm interested.

Good actor plus a dude who already wanted the role seems like a pretty good fit to me.

Really curious what this movie will feel like. Does it steer into the absurdity of the franchise or take itself way too seriously?

@csl316: Hmm? There have been a lot of AAA videogame movies,. especially recently. Warcraft, Assassin's Creed, the new Tomb Raider movies. Then obviously a bunch of movies based on classic games like Sonic and Rampage, and, of course, Detective Pikachu.

The days of Uwe Boll are long past. Though they did release an apparently terrible Doom movie kind of recently I guess. And no, I don't mean the Dwayne Johnson Karl Urban BANGER that we all love.

I really like Oscar Isaac (loved him in Inside Llewyn Davies) but this role doesn't seem like a good fit for him. Although if they make into a musical, I am all on board.

Issac played a pretty physical and intimidating dude in Ex Machina for the folks who would be worried about his casting.

I fully expect him to drop the role before filming can begin, however. He's attached to a bunch of films currently in pre-production already as well as Marvel's Moon Knight tv series.

While I wouldn't have ever pegged him for this role, I'm actually onboard after thinking about it for a bit.

@tehspectre: The Ex Machina role was actually one I was thinking of that made him not my first pick. He was dangerous in that role but not in the kind of cold and intimidating way Snake is. He was more twitchy and unhinged, though he was in really good shape too. Also he started out kind of warm and goofy, which is his most common role. I can't think of a role that he played where he had Snake energy. He's a good actor so maybe he can pull it off, but I don't think there's anything he's done yet that's really like it.

What's with all the "this person has never played this type of role so I believe they can't" nonsense?

I've only watched other people play MGS, but this seems like a good casting to me. He was good as a former SF-soldier-turned-mercenary in Triple Canopy on Netflix.

As I said - movie magic. There's an entire industry of trainers who specialize in turning actors into physical specimens and they can cast around his height.

@bigsocrates: Man, I really don’t think of Snake as cold and intimidating at all, so Isaac seems perfectly capable of the role to me. Some people have this image of Snake as some kind of Clint Eastwood hardass, and he’s just not. For all the melodrama with clones and Ocelot, Snake’s moments in the games also have plenty of smirking sexual innuendo with Meryl and EVA, snide remarks to bosses about their ridiculous gimmicks, light roasting of Raiden for his lack of any practical experience.

Then again, I disagreed with almost every take Dan Ryckert had about Metal Gear Solid, so I guess two people can look at MGS and get very different things out of it.

@mikewhy: It's not about whether they've played this type of role before, it's that actors have energy and "types" and also physical bodies. Oscar Isaac is 5'9" so not the tall lean person Snake is, and while that doesn't preclude him from playing the role (Tom Cruise is very short and did fine as Ethan Hunt) he also has never projected a Snake-like energy on screen. It's possible that he can pull it off, but it's also possible that he was miscast, which happens a lot. Obviously if the trailer comes out and he inhabits the role and looks great that will be fantastic, but there's nothing unusual about being skeptical when movies cast against type, especially because so many movies based on various properties are, in fact, horribly miscast. Like when they cast Marky Mark as Max Payne and he was very bad. Or when they cast Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince of Persia and he was bad. Or when they cast Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile and he was...well...something.

Oscar Isaac is a better actor than those guys (though Gyllenhaal is talented) so maybe he can find a way to project the right energy, but the closest he's come to my knowledge was in Annihilation, and that was still very far away.

He'll be crouching most of the film anyway.

@shindig: If they did a 2 hour movie where 90 minutes of it is just codec calls then I would go see it 3 times in the theater.

Can we get Nic Cage to play Psycho Mantis?

@brian_: he's been in character for the last 20 years.

Good casting. I'm interested based off that alone. Let's get a big, dumb Metal Gear movie!

I've only seen him be kind of annoying in Star Wars so my first instinct would be to worry but that's not fair, anything's possible.
One person i am pretty confident in is Jordan Vogt-Roberts, he's been pursuing this for a long time and i don't think he'd half ass it, and Kong: Skull Island was extremely well made, i want the people who made that to make an MGS film.
While trying to get this off the ground he was gathering original voice actors and having artists create concepts for the film, he really wants this to happen.

Trivia: The boat/plane in Kong: Skull Island is called Gray Fox.

Every time you go in, it's different codec calls.

Can we all agree that David Hayter should cameo as Johnny in the bathroom stall?

The voice doesn't really seem to fit but then again I can't really imagine how this movie will play out since Snake is such an emotional blank canvas through most of the games.

@bigsocrates: meh, just comes off like a bunch of prejudice. And to sample a bunch of movies that had a lot of problems and singling about the casting? Sure dude. And the height? Come on. Solid Snake is apparently 5'10" to 6'3".

I like him so quite pleased with it. Not sure about the voice though, needs to be more of a gruff voice. Maybe he can do an accent.

I can't name a single actor I'd rather watch than Isaac. So good. This role though? Kinda surprising. Big catch for the producers I'd say. Might be a good sign for the quality of the script etc. Or..you know..not at all. But let's stay positive.

@bisonhero: Snake isn't always cold and intimidating, but he is when he's being serious. Again, the character I'd compare him against in movies is the one he's most influenced by, Snake Plissken. S.P. can be funny and flirty and everything else, but when he turns it on he's all business and a killer. Isaac's performances tend to be much more emotionally open and nuanced. Even when he's tough on screen he's also vulnerable. I just have never seen him turn that off and go into utterly confident badass mode.

@mikewhy: Prejudice against what? It's not about the height it's about the physicality (Snake is long and lean while Isaac is not) and more importantly attitude. Now maybe Isaac can tap into something he never has before on screen and do the Kurt Russell thing. but it's definitely not anything he's shown in the past. And Prince of Persia's biggest problem was Gyllenhaal. It wouldn't have been a good movie with a better star, but it would have been closer to average. There are lots of non-videogame movies that have been ruined by bad casting. I don't think Isaac will ruin this movie, because he's a talented actor so he'll put in some kind of credible performance, but I think there are other people who would be a better fit.

It could work, but they'll never make a MGS movie

@dt9k: Monkeys Paw outcome: They make a Metal Gear movie but it's based on Metal Gear Survive.

Every time people speculate about the look or "feel" or style of an actor or whatever, when it comes to fanboy roles, I'm always reminded of Michael Keaton and Heath Ledger.

Also, who cares about the voice? Snake isn't a real dude.

@bigsocrates: Jesus dude, actors act. If it is a good script and well directed movie, it will be a good movie. Isaac's "physicality" will definitely not play a role in that.

So it's the Monster Hunter movie?

Good luck to this actor and the rest of the film crew.

@frytup: I feel like I have this argument with everyone whenever Oscar Isaaics is brought up to play Snake, but the idea that a 6’2” wrestler is hiding under beds, in lockers, and climbing through vents is comical and absurd. Snake is a small guy.

I think Oscar is perfect casting.

There has been rumors of a Metal Gear Solid Movie every couple years for the last 20 years. I will take them seriously once there are photographs, trailers and started shooting... and even then I will be reluctant until they actually premiere that thing.

Nice catch with Isaacs, though... he is a pretty good actor, and I have a lot of confidence he can pull it off, if they give him something to work with.

I don't think MGS need a movie and the same goes for Uncharted and LoU because these games were free to express their story over long cutscenes.

So, I don't think that a movie adaptation can add anything to them in fact we most probably see the opposite.

Heh, maybe it will go the Uncharted route, and if/when they eventually start filming Tom Holland will be playing Snake and Oscar Isaac will be playing Solidus or Old Big Boss!

I do wonder which aspects of MGS are picked up and which are discarded for a movie. Will this feel like a retelling of the MGS story or will it feel like an action movie that Snake could have been doing on the side during his Philantrophy days with Otacon, Mei Ling and Natasha providing support?

@onemanarmyy: I feel like MGS1 is pretty much the only one of the games that is ready for adaptation top to bottom. It is a fairly basic military guy/spy story with a slight twist that doesn't get too deep into the whole MGS mythos. In fact with the revelation about Solid and Liquid being clones and one having recessive genes etc etc it's a great glimpse into the future insanity that potential sequels could explore. MGS2 has too much codec and meta commentary to be a viable candidate and MGS3 could work but is too steeped in lore to be a standalone film unless you devote a significant amount of time to explaining who everyone is and why you should care. Past MGS3 it's basically impossible to follow the story without a wiki so those are out.

An interesting rogue choice would be Peace Walker as a prequel origin story but ehhhhhh.

Of course I seriously doubt this will go anywhere past a single movie. Will it get made? I think there is enough interest and hubbub about it that I'm relatively sure they will somehow bring it to the big screen. At the end of the day it really shouldn't be this hard to make a film about military coups and nuclear deterrents. How well it actually does at the box office remains to be seen, especially since COVID is beginning to seriously change the way people interact with big budget films to the point where I don't know if we will go back to those days. There is a potential future where going to the cinema is going to be a prestige event in lieu of just watching the thing at home on streaming the same day. That could potentially pave the way for more oddball films as people are a lot more willing to click a tile on their TV on a lazy Sunday evening than drag themselves to the movies for a potentially expensive and bad trip.

YOUR Snake is small. Dan Ryckert Snake is basically Schwarzenegger.

Seriously, though, I think you're giving the internal logic of a video game series far too much credit. But if you've actually gone through MGS cut scenes and compared Snake to other characters to come up with some decent stature data, I'll take your word for it.

Physical description

Eye color

Blue, later blue gray^[3]

Hair color

Brown, later gray

Ethnicity

Caucasian

Height

• 178 cm (1999)^[4]
• 182 cm (2005)^[1]
• 180 cm (2014)^[3]

Weight

• 75 kg (1999)^[4]
• 63.5 kg (2014)^[3]

To be clear, there's a four-inch difference between actor and character in-game. That said, it wouldn't matter if the actor was 5'4. They generally make it so the actors fit. I doubt you'll be able to tell his height in the movie. When it comes to muscularity, actors... do actor things to get into the role. That's what actors do. I'm not worried about any of that. I think he's a decent actor, but not what I picture Snake to be. That said, let's see how it goes. Or not, I'm not sure how interested I am seeing this in how video games tend to go most of the time, even when the people making the film are into the games. I will say though, I just watched Sonic the other day and thought it was okay. It wasn't bad.

@bigsocrates: Karl Urban would have actually been a much better cast here, now you mention it.

Urban can play Venom in the MGS:V prequel TV show. People can seem angry Snake was recast at that point and then find out the truth at series end. Everyone wins.

The Metal Gear wiki has 3 different canon heights for Snake, but they range between 178 cm and 182 cm. That's about 5'10 to 6'. Snake is not really all that tall.