Once upon a time, there was once going to be a live-action, big screen adaptation of Metroid. And it was going to helmed by John Woo of all people. An odd pairing to say the least, but also an intriguing one. Unfortunately, the final product never materialized, and thanks to a recent report by IGN, we finally have the details.
IGN spoke with Brad Foxhoven, who was producer of the untitled Metroid movie project, about what happened behind the scenes. And in the beginning, things were looking good:
"We believed there was a great opportunity for John Woo to bring his style of action into a Metroid film. Nintendo was quite supportive of the idea, as they were all fans of John's previous films."
For three years, Woo and his production company worked on the project:
"We knew that a lot of the Metroid mythology had many similarities to other well-known science fiction franchises, so we had to try and propose some fresh ideas that Nintendo would approve. We also knew that the characters were originally developed many years ago, when game systems were limited in their graphics and animation. These same designs needed to be updated, particularly when seen as a live-action representation."
The film was originally slated for a 2006 release, but they were not able to meet that date, due to difficulties as it pertained to crafting the aforementioned backstory. And much of that was due to Nintendo being gun shy, which was a direct result of the live action Super Mario Bros movie, which left a very bad taste in their mouth:
"Nintendo was definitely discouraged by it, but felt that with John [Woo] they would be in better hands… The challenge for us was that it felt that the biggest lesson Nintendo learned from Mario was to hold onto their rights even tighter, limiting collaboration when it came to translating Metroid to the big screen. Our entire development time was spent exploring the Metroid world, and what we could – and couldn't – do within it."
Though in the end, Nintendo was unwilling to address some very basic questions that were unnecessary in the confines of a video game, but absolutely essential in a movie:
"Things started to go south when we tried to dig into the character a bit more. As you know, any film needs a deeper story arc than what is told in the game, where we learn about the characters and their world… What are they doing when they are NOT fighting? What is their daily existence and relationships? What are Samus's aspirations, history, and fears? Nintendo appreciated the questions, but had never thought about them before, and ultimately didn't have a lot of answers. In the end, they felt uncomfortable with our team being the ones to propose those answers."
