Rumour: A Metroid Movie May Become A Reality As Two Studios Battle For Rights

It already exists…it’s called Aliens

Imagine if Sony Animation made an animated Metroid movie in a similar style as the Spiderverse movies. Maybe not full comic book style, but with the skipped animation frames technique they pioneered. That could be so good.

@Shepdawg1 Yes, 100% - exactly where my mind went too!

Metroid may make the most sense to some degree in live action - but I think a stylised animation move would mean it would benefit from showing off Samus' full potential in combat with some dynamic set pieces, it would also mean there's less of a loss of cost cutting for expensive sets and crap CGI.

As a massive Metroid fan, I'm not sure if I want this to happen. I'd imagine it would be difficult to capture the sense of isolation while keeping the movie interesting storywise. But then again, I suppose the first Alien made it work pretty well.

Honestly, after Project Hail Mary was so good, even if that wasn't an action film, I would love to see more science fiction space movies, and I think a live-action Metroid film could work. As long as Chris Pratt is Samus.

I want to see a Link and Samus road movie where they sit in a car and don't speak to each other for 2 hours.

@KoopaTheGamer maybe I sound like a grouch, but I hate all this tbh. I enjoyed the independence of the gaming universe from Hollywood, especially when the movie industry began to race to the bottom. And it's not like the feedback loop doesnt work both ways, and we can see how the aesthetic of Nintendo characters is becoming more Pixar'ised over time. I think this Americanisation/hollywooding/Netflixing of Japanese game franchises is a bad thing. But this is all big money for Nintendo, and they are making more off movies now than ever before. So it is inevitable unfortunately.

@Shepdawg1
That would be scary. Sony does not make good films on their own. I would imagine this would be similar.
Spideyverse had good animation, but that story was pretty bad, sounds similar to the mario movies.

Along with Zelda and Star Fox, Metroid is the one other Nintendo franchise that I want to see come to the big screen; those three franchises are my Top 3 favorites from Nintendo. Although, given that Samus is solo and silent for the vast majority of the games she is in, they will have to come up with some sort of way to tell her story. I think the best way to do this is to depict her origins, just like the Metroid manga did. Maybe they could do flashbacks with each new area she accesses, or something. Either way, if this comes to fruition, I’ll be first in line to see it!

@Smithicus Yeah, I completely agree. I also think this presages a greater shift towards "Nintendo as entertainment company," as opposed to "Nintendo as game company." It's been 10 years since the last 3D Mario game. In that same time frame, Nintendo has been able to announce, create, market and release 2 movies (3 if you assume the Zelda movie will release before the next game), and build 2 theme parks from scratch. I have to assume that the movies cost way less to make than the games, which only incentivizes Nintendo to pivot towards Hollywood content.

I've always felt like Metroid could absolutely work as a live action movie. It's steeped in movie inspiration anyway. But it only works if they don't try and go for the broadest appeal possible. It needs to be tense and claustrophobic and not afraid to have stints of Samus alone against antagonists. The aliens need to be unpleasant and scary. It would be great if we felt like we were in the visor ourselves without being gimmicky.

The final girl trope works fine here. Send Samus on a mission with GF Troopers. Kill off or incapacitate them gradually as the film progresses. Make her simultaneously badass and resourceful but vulnerable.
Mercury Steam have been doing a great job with this balance.

This will NOT end well.

Its not cynical, its not debatable, it just will NOT end well lmao.

There is so many ways to mess this up whether its the actor they give samus, the themes being too similar to other movies since metroid is already a franchise inspired by other sci-fi media, or it'll struggle to find a niche between both mature and atypical nintendo audiences. Metroid is also not a franchise doing great RN so not sure the 'its metroid' factor will be enough for sales.

Like I don't see how they make an actual metroid movie unless it was 1:1 with some of the game's plots cause metroid's in-game writing (prime 4, other m, etc) is not really good reference points

@Twilite9 I disagree. A lot of things like morph ball would probably not look as good in live action. Or would be so expensive to cgi the movie will never make its money back.

An animated Metroid will let them be more dynamic with her movement and the overall action.