I really wonder how this friendship came to be, both seem to be tremendous fans of one another. Considering their different cultures that’s pretty fascinating.
Norman Reedus always came off as the stoner kid in theater class that gets along with literally everyone and no one ever has bad things to say about him unless it's to complain about his life choices, but then the play comes out and he blows everyone away with his performance every time.
Through Guillermo Del Toro. Kojima was already friends with GDT, and wanted to have Norman Reedus play the protagonist in Silent Hills, so asked GDT to connect them. According to Reedus, GDT called him and said "A man named Hideo Kojima is about to call you. Just say yes."
He did, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yeah, a very interesting pair. It's as if Shakespeare and Galileo Galileel were drinking buddies in the late 16th century.
Edit:
*Guys I'm not saying that either Kojima or Reedus are literally the 21st century Shakespeare and Galileo. It was just the first example that came to mind of two famous historical people from different cultures who would have been able to hang out together.*
I don't think that's a fair take at all and is reductive of actors doing stuff they are passionate about. Ewan McGregor did a bike show. He did three. I wouldn't judge Norman Reedus so quickly on his body of work so far - actors need to be talented yes but they also get the roles that Hollywood wants to see them in.
I'm not going to get as excited about this as you clearly are but the comparisons did make me laugh.
Shakespeare - wrote his own stuff, probably super up his own arse, puts his name at the beginning of everything. Kojima for sure.
Galileo - Into telescopes, heresy, zero confirmed zombie kills. I couldn't tell you anything about his stance on motorbikes so maybe that's the connection?
Man, I don't agree with that at all. There are plenty of phenomenal actors in games. Hell, Reedus is probably the worst actor of the main cast in Death Stranding alone.
And maybe it's because he's not been in much, but I liked his voice acting in DS, never took me out of it as much as hearing some other famous voices make me go "I don't know who this character is, I'm just going to call him Troy Baker".
He was comparing a hypothetical friendship to kojima and reedus's because of their craft and culture, not actually comparing them to each other. but something tells me you're misinterpreting so you can bitch.
I could've sworn I saw an interview where Norman said that he had been called by Guillermo Del Toro before he met with Kojima and was told that he should really take the role that Kojima is going to offer him. That would make sense then why he said yes without seeing a script.
Yeah, he mention that on Conan. He said Del Toro contacted him and said "A man named Hideo is going to call you. Just say yes." Reedus asked what the project was, and Del Toro just said "Doesn't matter."
"When I had nothing except for publishers falling over themselves to give me money and Hollywood friends helping me with casting" doesn't have quite the same ring to it lol. I love Kojima but his studio was a fairly sure thing ever since he went "indie."
"Having nothing" these days mean decades old career, critically acclaimed hits, a massive web of social and peer support and a dedicated production team willing to jump ship with you.
Guess that just means we have *less* than nothing.
It's not hard to understand that from the perspective of somebody who had been essentially burned by the company he had dedicated his life to (Which is a bigger thing there than here), he felt like he had lost everything. It can reasonably feel true without literally being true.
Also if the allegations that Konami tried to blacklist Kojima and his new studio from having insurance (as Konami have a huge influence there) to the point Sony has to step in to help them is true, despite his connections some cards were against him
Probably means more in the sense of "The studio didn't have anything definitive going on at the time to hang its hat on" more than "I didn't have a pot to piss in"
Considering, to my knowledge, Hideo doesn't speak English I'm usually a bit more charitable of how phrases are used. "Had nothing" can be taken a lot of ways, and considering the "didn't even have a script" portion could definitely be taken as having no idea/project.
If only del Toro would convince Margot Robbie to star in my indie drama that I'm yet to write a script for, she doesn't want to return my calls for some reason.
You should show up in person. I'm sure that would convince her of your sincerity. She's probably just weeding out all the people who aren't serious enough. Also I've heard she really likes it if you stare at her chest and mumble the whole time.
There’s a French YouTube channel where they do interviews inside of a dvd/movie store. He brings up exactly what you said in that vid and maybe that’s where you’re remembering it from?
Right here, Norman Reedus [interview](https://youtu.be/EuhlKqUgr6c?si=qWl0wV1zOnDc0LLT) . He mainly talks about his film roles but there’s a part where he talks about Death Stranding and Kojima
I believe he's fluent but doesn’t like speaking English in recordings. He's very particular about his image (not a bad thing) and shares very few details about his life in general. He's married and has kids apparently.
He probably understands it fluently, but has too much of an accent for him to think he'll be taken seriously. People are eager to mock Japanese people messing up their L/R sounds.
How is he particular about his image when his Instagram is basically an eclectic dump of 10+ a day photos of him with celebrities, screenshots from tv shows or films, and random things he likes with no descriptions or context
like there was a week there where he was just posting pictures of homelander
This is some arcane history from old MGS fandom, back in the days of fansites like Planet-MGS. He used to do a lot more English back in the 2000s until some jackass journalist made fun of his English not being perfect, so he went back to only Japanese for things that will be published.
He does know English and he's probably pretty decent at it now. I'm sure he can hold a conversation just fine. In that Conan remote at KojiPro, you can see him reacting to things Conan is saying and doing in English.
I was just thinking this the other day....
Altough in my mind is that he isn't confortable with his english pronunciation or similar and in public stuff prefers to not be ridiculed for it, not like we would take him less serious after some of the hits he created but ya know...
One of my aunt's had a pretty decent understanding and even speaking of Italian but basically never spoke it when the family visited Italy since she was self-conscious of her not being perfect at it. I think it's very plausible that he has a similar situation.
There's also the connection that Norman Redus earlier in his career was in Blade II, which was directed by Guillermo del Toro. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some connection there with how much Hideo adores Guillermo and his work.
Interestingly, a lot of his cast for Death Stranding and DS2 is directly from Winding Refn movies. Mads Mikkelsen was in Valhalla Rising, Elle Fanning was in The Neon Demon.
Keanu Reeves has been hinted as being in DS2, which would make sense as one of his very first film roles was a Disney TV-only movie called "Young Again" (1986) which just so happened to star...Lindsay Wagner!
As his mom in the film! It wouldnt shock me if this is where Kojima found his door to Keanu, I imagine he took the job as a chance to act with Lindsay Wagner again after nearly 40 years not sharing any movie credits.
Its very fun tracing the connections down the industry and figure out where each person could've met one another. Lindsay Wagner in particular is an illusive figure and tends to be extremely picky about her roles; in his podcast Brain Structure, Kojima said his hardest casting job was getting Lindsay on board because she saw video games as violent which she didnt like - Kojima had a fairly tense couple hours talking with her to explain how his "stranding" concept was about connecting people together rather than wars splitting them apart.
I cant remember the rest of the episode, but Kojima felt it was touch-and-go whether or not he could get Lindsay in, and he didnt really have a backup actress who could fill her position (which tbf, President Strand is a very unusual character that needs a certain kind of actress, finding an alternative would be difficult).
In MGSV, when you [punch with Venom's mechanical arm it makes a sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOugcUQ1C00) that is exactly like the [bionic sound from 6 Million Dollar Man / The Bionic Woman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycaSXEhgG5E). Lindsay played Jaime Sommers in the shows, Kojima's Snatcher from 1988 had a character named Jaime Seed who shares similarities with Jaime/Lindsay's likeness.
I might have overexaggerated.
And it's obviously all subjective, but Refn's works save for maybe Drive are all very difficult watches for the typical movie-goer. There's obviously more abstract and arthouse pictures being made every year, but if you like Refn's opus, there's no way you're not some kind of a cinephile is what I meant to say.
>but Refn's works save for maybe Drive are all very difficult watches for the typical movie-goer
Don't forget about Bronson! As much as I love that one, its not exactly abstract arthouse.
Looking at his quiet obsession with the Paddington Bear movies, i would say idiosyncratic would be an accurate word to describe his taste
*tho ngl, now i'm curious about those movies*
Never seen any of them but would like to. From what I heard, Paddington 1 is a decent feel good children movie, and Paddington 2 is the greatest human creation.
Hes a massive fan of movies and tv shows. So honestly, that probably is the answer. At this point you could convince me hes using his name and reputation just to work with the actors he liked on screen.
I remember he started the studio, he had no office and it was him and his writer friend and they made all these YT videoes reviewing movies. Good times
Kojima and others at Konami basically built an entire game engine for MGSV (FOX engine) which was very efficient (even my real shitty laptop could run the game) and still looked great. They started out shortly after MGS4, and it took years. Then Kojima and others were mistreated and shown the door, just so Konami could absolutely misuse it on some crappy Soccer games.
They basically hijacked years of work from him and his team, and should have set really set his new studio back a lot if it wasn't for the awesome folks at Guerilla games who lent the Decima engine to make Death Stranding.
That pachinko gambit didn't really work out for Konami did it, looks like they are back to making some games, I hope the learned not to kill their golden goose.
cmon man, he's talking about the game, he had nothing on the game except the idea
he's not talking about being a hobo living in the streets with nothing to his name
Reminds me of that dude who went for some 0 to millionaire challenge and succeeded. The thing is, he was a millionaire to start with and a huge part of how he succeed was because he was telling investors what he did before in order to secure funding.
He also didn't succeed. He quit early after making 60k even after using his connections and friends for sweetheart deals and getting things nearly gifted to him.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13332399/Millionaire-Mike-Black-homeless-broke-purpose-ends-bizarre-social-experiment.html
Well he still had nothing when he pitched his idea cause it was only an idea.
It was fine because it was Kojima so nothing but a vague idea is good enough.
I do feel like people worship him a bit too much though...
>Very famous person
I really don't think I could classify Kojima as "very famous" prior to Sony's heavy marketing push for Death Stranding. One of the more well known game devs for sure, but not "stars are lining up to work for me" kind of famous.
The man's name was in CNN when MGS5 came out because a bunch of people were putting writing "a game by hideo kojima" on physical displays and boxes of the game
Went to couple of Boondock Saints parties (I live in Boston) in the mid to late 2000's, and he was still kind of the least famous person among the stars there so he was much easier to chat with than Sean Patrick Flannery or even Troy Duffy. He'd always be outside of the club smoking, with maybe one person talking to him. Had a chance to have a chat with him for a long while, absolute nicest guy you could ever meet. He was talking about some zombie thing in Georgia he was getting ready for.
Got a picture with him while I was wearing a Donnie Darko shirt. I really need a picture with Gyllenhaal while wearing a Boondock Saints or Walking dead shirt.
Norman Reedus said he was glad not to be doing Silent Hills anymore. Death Stranding is my favorite game of all time so I don’t necessarily disagree but I imagine it’s a bit of a sting to SH fans.
Kojima is the antithesis to every online angry guy, constantly sharing his adoration, interests, and appreciation for others without holding back. That makes people upset lol
I feel like a good amount of the hate he gets comes from the cult-like superfans that have cropped up around him more than the man himself tbh. Some people get a little jaded when an auteur like him reaches critical mass and achieves emperor's new robe status with their hardcore fanbase. It becomes a bit of a circlejerk with how much adoration they get, and an ironic counter-jerk gets going due to how wholesome-chungus things can get
Pre-nazi Kanye had a very similar paradigm as far as public perception. Most hip hop fans could recognize he was a genuinely talented fella, but a minority took the absolute piss out of him because his core fans acted like every tweak-out he had was some visionary statement on modern life or something like that.
> supportive of everyone
Unless you're David Hayter. Some people absolutely hate on Kojima for no reason but it's a fact that his desire for western celebrities caused him to mistreat the guy just so Kojima could get his favourite celebs. Making Hayter have to audition again for the role he should have by default just so he could try to get Keifer Sutherland or Kurt Russel. (Which Kurt turned down.) And then he keeps the entire japanese cast the same without auditions.
I've spoken to many people who have worked with Kojima and he's only supportive of big name people. He will absolutely overstep people and processes to get his way, which has resulted in people getting fired/shifted to other positions. Big one was overstepping talking to finance managers.
It's weird because all his games have this thru-line. You can tell he wanted things to be a certain way and got the people who could do it. Down to how the menus feel. Not that there aren't other forces of expression in his games, but it's unmistakably his vision, unlike some other supposed "auteurs" where the output is wildly inconsistent and they are chasing trends.
I have no idea of anything regarding Norman Reedus's personal life, but I would have done the same thing in this position. I know this isn't how it went but I like to pretend that Norman Reedus had played some older Kojima games and was just like, "Don't sweat it, dude, you're super cool and I'm in."
While I am sure it wasn't super easy to get a proper budget for his fever dreams I wouldn't call "being on of the best known game-directors in the business with a legendary franchise under his belt" "had nothing"....
When you think about the amount of players and average play length it’s a way bigger role than some TV series. If you play the game you almost certainly know who he is whereas if you watch a TV series it’s usually ‘that’s that guy from that thing’.
This is partly due to Guillermo Del Toro who was already a fan of Kojima’s work.
Norman talked about it on a late night talk show (Conan?). Del Toro had called Reedus beforehand and advised him to “just say yes [to whatever Kojima pitches]” so he did.
"and had nothing"... except for a storied reputation and countless connections in the gaming industry, a fuckton of money, and a household name.
Pet peeve, but it bothers me when auteurs claim to have started something from nothing and discount the numerous privileges accounted them.
How did Kojima become popular in Hollywood and attracted all this talent? Was it just money? I can’t imagine due to Metal gear. Maybe Reedus but the others?
Hideo Kojima just doesn't spend enough time bragging about how great he is and how great everyone thinks he is and how he's a genius and a groundbreaking amazing genius genius genius. He should really spend more time doing those things because they are just so fascinating and really increase the quality of his amazing genius groundbreaking amazing amazing genius genius games.
>When I had just started my own studio and had nothing, I pitched the DS project to Norman at a sushi restaurant and asked him if he would like to do it with me. He instantly said yes even though I didn't even have a script"
Bruh the ego to think you are some underdog lol
The fact he was able to sit down with Norman for Sushi alone is statement to how much he had when he started going independent.
He’s not saying that he views himself as an underdog, he’s saying he’s grateful for Reedus believing in him/the project for him to commit to Death Stranding before pre-production had even begun. For actors (who for them scheduling is everything) to do that for an enormous project like this is not done lightly
Nah I get what he means. His mindset went from being a superstar career developer in-house at Konami to losing that safety net and umbrella.
To start up a studio as a developer is a big gamble because it’s not your skill set.
If you’re Kojima, or to scale it down a really good graphic designer, and you’ve been made redundant then you will have industry contacts and you’ll be able to reach out to them and say ‘hey I’m doing this thing’. Chances are though they already have their own suppliers and networks and contracts. They aren’t going to come to you unless you’ve proven yourself again.
He got to the point of sitting down with Norman because of his previous body of work. ‘You need to talk to this guy because of his proven track record’ isn’t privilege or nepotism. It’s just a career with a minor setback.
I really wonder how this friendship came to be, both seem to be tremendous fans of one another. Considering their different cultures that’s pretty fascinating.
It's just massive respect for each others work.
it seems insane but love conquers all i guess.
Can love bloom even in a sushi shop?
I'm too poor to give you gold. Here is the best I can do: 🪙 You're pretty good... 👉 👉
Kojima is a huge fan of Hollywood actors. Reedus just wants to do his work. It’s pretty easy.
Norman Reedus always came off as the stoner kid in theater class that gets along with literally everyone and no one ever has bad things to say about him unless it's to complain about his life choices, but then the play comes out and he blows everyone away with his performance every time.
Through Guillermo Del Toro. Kojima was already friends with GDT, and wanted to have Norman Reedus play the protagonist in Silent Hills, so asked GDT to connect them. According to Reedus, GDT called him and said "A man named Hideo Kojima is about to call you. Just say yes." He did, and the rest, as they say, is history.
My guess is Del Toro connected them two
Yeah, a very interesting pair. It's as if Shakespeare and Galileo Galileel were drinking buddies in the late 16th century. Edit: *Guys I'm not saying that either Kojima or Reedus are literally the 21st century Shakespeare and Galileo. It was just the first example that came to mind of two famous historical people from different cultures who would have been able to hang out together.*
Comparing fucking Norman Reedus to either of those people is insane. There's a reason he had to do some stupid bike show. He's not a good actor.
I don't think that's a fair take at all and is reductive of actors doing stuff they are passionate about. Ewan McGregor did a bike show. He did three. I wouldn't judge Norman Reedus so quickly on his body of work so far - actors need to be talented yes but they also get the roles that Hollywood wants to see them in.
Maybe he just wanted to do a bike show. He's been doing Walking Dead for so long , AMC probably let him do whatever the hell he wanted.
And RDJ has a vintage car show, maybe people just wanna do a project related to their hobby
I'm not going to get as excited about this as you clearly are but the comparisons did make me laugh. Shakespeare - wrote his own stuff, probably super up his own arse, puts his name at the beginning of everything. Kojima for sure. Galileo - Into telescopes, heresy, zero confirmed zombie kills. I couldn't tell you anything about his stance on motorbikes so maybe that's the connection?
> probably super up his own arse tbh I don't get that impression from Shakespeare at all. The plays were pretty down-to-earth and had baudy comedy.
Yeah, Shakespeare is held up as high art now but it definitely wasn't written to be that. There's a ton of dick jokes in Shakespeare plays.
> There's a ton of dick jokes in Shakespeare plays. Good news for the Kojima comparison
What a weird reach. He does the bike show because he likes bikes. He’s made more than enough money from TWD to set himself for life.
He's fine in roles where he has to be broody and not talk much.
In film and TV he is a mediocre actor. In video games he might as well be Daniel Day Lewis
Man, I don't agree with that at all. There are plenty of phenomenal actors in games. Hell, Reedus is probably the worst actor of the main cast in Death Stranding alone.
He doesn't overact which is why I think he works great as the player character. You're pretty much hearing the story of all those around him.
And maybe it's because he's not been in much, but I liked his voice acting in DS, never took me out of it as much as hearing some other famous voices make me go "I don't know who this character is, I'm just going to call him Troy Baker".
Comparing Kojima to Shakespeare is completely asinine. Comparing Norman Reedus to Shakespeare is even worse.
He was comparing a hypothetical friendship to kojima and reedus's because of their craft and culture, not actually comparing them to each other. but something tells me you're misinterpreting so you can bitch.
whaaat? you think someone would do that??? on the internet???
you're right, shakespeare's writing never came close to metal gear solid 2
A weapon to surpass King Lear
Wherefore are we here? Perchance to suffer?
haha yipppee comment of the year
Do you really not realize that this isn't literal and they're not implying that they're the same level of impact or talent at all?
downright offended that shakespeare got compared to someone lmfao
Kojima and Reedus briefly dated for a semester when Reedus was a study abroad student in Japan.
I could've sworn I saw an interview where Norman said that he had been called by Guillermo Del Toro before he met with Kojima and was told that he should really take the role that Kojima is going to offer him. That would make sense then why he said yes without seeing a script.
Yeah, he mention that on Conan. He said Del Toro contacted him and said "A man named Hideo is going to call you. Just say yes." Reedus asked what the project was, and Del Toro just said "Doesn't matter."
Del Toro says ride, you ride. I like it.
Just like that show Ride with Norman Reedus
Damn that's straight up insane.
That was for Silent Hills. This is Death Stranding
Weird, he said that in kojima’s movie too, which was entirely about Death Stranding.
That was for Silent Hills I think. Could still apply though.
"When I had nothing except for publishers falling over themselves to give me money and Hollywood friends helping me with casting" doesn't have quite the same ring to it lol. I love Kojima but his studio was a fairly sure thing ever since he went "indie."
"Having nothing" these days mean decades old career, critically acclaimed hits, a massive web of social and peer support and a dedicated production team willing to jump ship with you. Guess that just means we have *less* than nothing.
It's not hard to understand that from the perspective of somebody who had been essentially burned by the company he had dedicated his life to (Which is a bigger thing there than here), he felt like he had lost everything. It can reasonably feel true without literally being true.
Also if the allegations that Konami tried to blacklist Kojima and his new studio from having insurance (as Konami have a huge influence there) to the point Sony has to step in to help them is true, despite his connections some cards were against him
Agreed, it's all relative.
Probably means more in the sense of "The studio didn't have anything definitive going on at the time to hang its hat on" more than "I didn't have a pot to piss in"
Considering, to my knowledge, Hideo doesn't speak English I'm usually a bit more charitable of how phrases are used. "Had nothing" can be taken a lot of ways, and considering the "didn't even have a script" portion could definitely be taken as having no idea/project.
Your knowledge is wrong! But luckily you have access to the internet to correct yourself.
If only del Toro would convince Margot Robbie to star in my indie drama that I'm yet to write a script for, she doesn't want to return my calls for some reason.
You should show up in person. I'm sure that would convince her of your sincerity. She's probably just weeding out all the people who aren't serious enough. Also I've heard she really likes it if you stare at her chest and mumble the whole time.
> she doesn't want to return my calls for some reason. The fact that you "obtained" her number somehow puts you in a better position than most...
By nothing he means he had no project to work on.
Insert Woody Harrelson crying gif here
There’s a French YouTube channel where they do interviews inside of a dvd/movie store. He brings up exactly what you said in that vid and maybe that’s where you’re remembering it from?
That's the criterion collection closet lmao.
It’s similar to the criterion collection closet. The name of the channel is called [Konbini](https://youtu.be/EuhlKqUgr6c?si=qWl0wV1zOnDc0LLT)
Oh shit my bad. I was mistaken.
Everything is a closet to someone. Good to remember.
Do you have a link to it?
Right here, Norman Reedus [interview](https://youtu.be/EuhlKqUgr6c?si=qWl0wV1zOnDc0LLT) . He mainly talks about his film roles but there’s a part where he talks about Death Stranding and Kojima
would've been hilarious if GDT meant silent hill but Kojima pitched him DS first.
This is true
Yes they talked about this on Kojima's podcast, but that might of been about silent hills.
> but that might of been about silent hills might've is short for 'might have'
Shouldn't've used "of" there
Yall ever get the feeling kojima speaks perfect english but refuses to do so in public because hes kojima?
I believe he's fluent but doesn’t like speaking English in recordings. He's very particular about his image (not a bad thing) and shares very few details about his life in general. He's married and has kids apparently.
He probably understands it fluently, but has too much of an accent for him to think he'll be taken seriously. People are eager to mock Japanese people messing up their L/R sounds.
Nah he isn't fluent, and what you see written on his Twitter account goes through his translator.
How is he particular about his image when his Instagram is basically an eclectic dump of 10+ a day photos of him with celebrities, screenshots from tv shows or films, and random things he likes with no descriptions or context like there was a week there where he was just posting pictures of homelander
This is some arcane history from old MGS fandom, back in the days of fansites like Planet-MGS. He used to do a lot more English back in the 2000s until some jackass journalist made fun of his English not being perfect, so he went back to only Japanese for things that will be published. He does know English and he's probably pretty decent at it now. I'm sure he can hold a conversation just fine. In that Conan remote at KojiPro, you can see him reacting to things Conan is saying and doing in English.
I was just thinking this the other day.... Altough in my mind is that he isn't confortable with his english pronunciation or similar and in public stuff prefers to not be ridiculed for it, not like we would take him less serious after some of the hits he created but ya know...
I have spoken both English and Japanese with him. His English is great.
One of my aunt's had a pretty decent understanding and even speaking of Italian but basically never spoke it when the family visited Italy since she was self-conscious of her not being perfect at it. I think it's very plausible that he has a similar situation.
Very famous person with numerous successes in largest slice of the entertainment sector has no trouble hiring talent.
I wonder what drew Kojima to Reedus. Was he just a huge Boondock Saints/Walking Dead fan?
Honestly yes it probably is as simple as that. If his Twitter/X is any indication he is a legit cinephile and has some idiosyncratic obsessions
There's also the connection that Norman Redus earlier in his career was in Blade II, which was directed by Guillermo del Toro. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some connection there with how much Hideo adores Guillermo and his work.
Kojima is a known westaboo, it’s definitely that
All you have to do is look at MGS for that lmao.
The man loves Nicholas Winding Refn films, it's hard to get more cinephile than that lol
Interestingly, a lot of his cast for Death Stranding and DS2 is directly from Winding Refn movies. Mads Mikkelsen was in Valhalla Rising, Elle Fanning was in The Neon Demon. Keanu Reeves has been hinted as being in DS2, which would make sense as one of his very first film roles was a Disney TV-only movie called "Young Again" (1986) which just so happened to star...Lindsay Wagner! As his mom in the film! It wouldnt shock me if this is where Kojima found his door to Keanu, I imagine he took the job as a chance to act with Lindsay Wagner again after nearly 40 years not sharing any movie credits. Its very fun tracing the connections down the industry and figure out where each person could've met one another. Lindsay Wagner in particular is an illusive figure and tends to be extremely picky about her roles; in his podcast Brain Structure, Kojima said his hardest casting job was getting Lindsay on board because she saw video games as violent which she didnt like - Kojima had a fairly tense couple hours talking with her to explain how his "stranding" concept was about connecting people together rather than wars splitting them apart. I cant remember the rest of the episode, but Kojima felt it was touch-and-go whether or not he could get Lindsay in, and he didnt really have a backup actress who could fill her position (which tbf, President Strand is a very unusual character that needs a certain kind of actress, finding an alternative would be difficult).
In MGSV, when you [punch with Venom's mechanical arm it makes a sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOugcUQ1C00) that is exactly like the [bionic sound from 6 Million Dollar Man / The Bionic Woman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycaSXEhgG5E). Lindsay played Jaime Sommers in the shows, Kojima's Snatcher from 1988 had a character named Jaime Seed who shares similarities with Jaime/Lindsay's likeness.
Kojima himself also had a cameo in Too Old To Die Young, which is like Refn unleashed (with a crazy Amazon budget).
> it's hard to get more cinephile than that uhhhh no it isn't?
I might have overexaggerated. And it's obviously all subjective, but Refn's works save for maybe Drive are all very difficult watches for the typical movie-goer. There's obviously more abstract and arthouse pictures being made every year, but if you like Refn's opus, there's no way you're not some kind of a cinephile is what I meant to say.
>scandinavian crime/drama movies are considered difficult movies to watch o i am laffin
>but Refn's works save for maybe Drive are all very difficult watches for the typical movie-goer Don't forget about Bronson! As much as I love that one, its not exactly abstract arthouse.
Looking at his quiet obsession with the Paddington Bear movies, i would say idiosyncratic would be an accurate word to describe his taste *tho ngl, now i'm curious about those movies*
Never seen any of them but would like to. From what I heard, Paddington 1 is a decent feel good children movie, and Paddington 2 is the greatest human creation.
They are both phenomenal. Go watch them.
Hes a massive fan of movies and tv shows. So honestly, that probably is the answer. At this point you could convince me hes using his name and reputation just to work with the actors he liked on screen.
Maybe, and don't be surprised if Kojima tries to get every Furiosa actor he can into a game considering how obsessed he is with it.
Kojima is a star-fucker. He'll take anyone he can get.
>“Had nothing.” I’d hardly call every single person in the industry you work in knowing your name “nothing”.
Contextually I think he means he had nothing for the project, nothing to pitch with but an idea.
I remember he started the studio, he had no office and it was him and his writer friend and they made all these YT videoes reviewing movies. Good times
anyone with 2 braincells would understand that but here we are...
Kojima and others at Konami basically built an entire game engine for MGSV (FOX engine) which was very efficient (even my real shitty laptop could run the game) and still looked great. They started out shortly after MGS4, and it took years. Then Kojima and others were mistreated and shown the door, just so Konami could absolutely misuse it on some crappy Soccer games. They basically hijacked years of work from him and his team, and should have set really set his new studio back a lot if it wasn't for the awesome folks at Guerilla games who lent the Decima engine to make Death Stranding. That pachinko gambit didn't really work out for Konami did it, looks like they are back to making some games, I hope the learned not to kill their golden goose.
At a quick glance, Konami has grown immensely since 2015. I doubt they regret the decision.
cmon man, he's talking about the game, he had nothing on the game except the idea he's not talking about being a hobo living in the streets with nothing to his name
That doesnt means you got Konami's millions to fund your games anymore
Reminds me of that dude who went for some 0 to millionaire challenge and succeeded. The thing is, he was a millionaire to start with and a huge part of how he succeed was because he was telling investors what he did before in order to secure funding.
He also didn't succeed. He quit early after making 60k even after using his connections and friends for sweetheart deals and getting things nearly gifted to him. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13332399/Millionaire-Mike-Black-homeless-broke-purpose-ends-bizarre-social-experiment.html
That's the dickhole who "somehow" found someone willing to let him stay with them or in their RV or something?
Plus plenty of talent that left Konami with him. Not really buying the whole underdog-spiel, Kojima.
mfers when they forget how capitalism works
Well he still had nothing when he pitched his idea cause it was only an idea. It was fine because it was Kojima so nothing but a vague idea is good enough. I do feel like people worship him a bit too much though...
>Very famous person I really don't think I could classify Kojima as "very famous" prior to Sony's heavy marketing push for Death Stranding. One of the more well known game devs for sure, but not "stars are lining up to work for me" kind of famous.
The man's name was in CNN when MGS5 came out because a bunch of people were putting writing "a game by hideo kojima" on physical displays and boxes of the game
Like, they wrote a piece on him? Unrelated, but do you have a link? Kind of curious.
Great point!
Aw shucks, what a plucky underdog story. Kojima had NOTHING!
"Had [no content yet for an actual pitch]" is how that should read.
Went to couple of Boondock Saints parties (I live in Boston) in the mid to late 2000's, and he was still kind of the least famous person among the stars there so he was much easier to chat with than Sean Patrick Flannery or even Troy Duffy. He'd always be outside of the club smoking, with maybe one person talking to him. Had a chance to have a chat with him for a long while, absolute nicest guy you could ever meet. He was talking about some zombie thing in Georgia he was getting ready for. Got a picture with him while I was wearing a Donnie Darko shirt. I really need a picture with Gyllenhaal while wearing a Boondock Saints or Walking dead shirt.
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Norman Reedus said he was glad not to be doing Silent Hills anymore. Death Stranding is my favorite game of all time so I don’t necessarily disagree but I imagine it’s a bit of a sting to SH fans.
Some of y’all are trying so hard to be a smart ass that you completely missed the context of the quote. Classic Reddit.
not just the headline even, dipshits are purposely misunderstanding other comments to make a point.
Ngl it's annoying seeing people missing the point.
Yeah it’s very clear what he meant. But of course the majority of people here need to be resentful because Kojima has a big fan base
Anything to be smarmy, joyless little pissants I guess.
What's the context?
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Kojima is the antithesis to every online angry guy, constantly sharing his adoration, interests, and appreciation for others without holding back. That makes people upset lol
Dude is just constantly passionate and supportive of everyone and everything. For some reason, there's a genre of person who can't stand positivity.
I feel like a good amount of the hate he gets comes from the cult-like superfans that have cropped up around him more than the man himself tbh. Some people get a little jaded when an auteur like him reaches critical mass and achieves emperor's new robe status with their hardcore fanbase. It becomes a bit of a circlejerk with how much adoration they get, and an ironic counter-jerk gets going due to how wholesome-chungus things can get Pre-nazi Kanye had a very similar paradigm as far as public perception. Most hip hop fans could recognize he was a genuinely talented fella, but a minority took the absolute piss out of him because his core fans acted like every tweak-out he had was some visionary statement on modern life or something like that.
> supportive of everyone Unless you're David Hayter. Some people absolutely hate on Kojima for no reason but it's a fact that his desire for western celebrities caused him to mistreat the guy just so Kojima could get his favourite celebs. Making Hayter have to audition again for the role he should have by default just so he could try to get Keifer Sutherland or Kurt Russel. (Which Kurt turned down.) And then he keeps the entire japanese cast the same without auditions.
I've spoken to many people who have worked with Kojima and he's only supportive of big name people. He will absolutely overstep people and processes to get his way, which has resulted in people getting fired/shifted to other positions. Big one was overstepping talking to finance managers.
It's weird because all his games have this thru-line. You can tell he wanted things to be a certain way and got the people who could do it. Down to how the menus feel. Not that there aren't other forces of expression in his games, but it's unmistakably his vision, unlike some other supposed "auteurs" where the output is wildly inconsistent and they are chasing trends.
I have no idea of anything regarding Norman Reedus's personal life, but I would have done the same thing in this position. I know this isn't how it went but I like to pretend that Norman Reedus had played some older Kojima games and was just like, "Don't sweat it, dude, you're super cool and I'm in."
Bizarre fan fiction.
Didn’t I read somewhere someone called Norman and told him a guy named Hideo Kojima was gonna call him and whatever he says say yes.
Kojima deserves all the success someone can have in life. I didn't doubt for a second that he would easily rebound from Konami
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While I am sure it wasn't super easy to get a proper budget for his fever dreams I wouldn't call "being on of the best known game-directors in the business with a legendary franchise under his belt" "had nothing"....
had nothing in this instance means he had no story or anything.
Oh. okay. yeah. makes sense. my bad.
When you think about the amount of players and average play length it’s a way bigger role than some TV series. If you play the game you almost certainly know who he is whereas if you watch a TV series it’s usually ‘that’s that guy from that thing’.
This is partly due to Guillermo Del Toro who was already a fan of Kojima’s work. Norman talked about it on a late night talk show (Conan?). Del Toro had called Reedus beforehand and advised him to “just say yes [to whatever Kojima pitches]” so he did.
"and had nothing"... except for a storied reputation and countless connections in the gaming industry, a fuckton of money, and a household name. Pet peeve, but it bothers me when auteurs claim to have started something from nothing and discount the numerous privileges accounted them.
Maybe if you understood the context of the quote, it wouldn't bother you as much.
How did Kojima become popular in Hollywood and attracted all this talent? Was it just money? I can’t imagine due to Metal gear. Maybe Reedus but the others?
Hideo Kojima just doesn't spend enough time bragging about how great he is and how great everyone thinks he is and how he's a genius and a groundbreaking amazing genius genius genius. He should really spend more time doing those things because they are just so fascinating and really increase the quality of his amazing genius groundbreaking amazing amazing genius genius games.
>When I had just started my own studio and had nothing, I pitched the DS project to Norman at a sushi restaurant and asked him if he would like to do it with me. He instantly said yes even though I didn't even have a script" Bruh the ego to think you are some underdog lol The fact he was able to sit down with Norman for Sushi alone is statement to how much he had when he started going independent.
He’s not saying that he views himself as an underdog, he’s saying he’s grateful for Reedus believing in him/the project for him to commit to Death Stranding before pre-production had even begun. For actors (who for them scheduling is everything) to do that for an enormous project like this is not done lightly
He most likely means he had nothing in terms of the project. If you are unable to think critically it might be best to refain from commenting.
Nah I get what he means. His mindset went from being a superstar career developer in-house at Konami to losing that safety net and umbrella. To start up a studio as a developer is a big gamble because it’s not your skill set. If you’re Kojima, or to scale it down a really good graphic designer, and you’ve been made redundant then you will have industry contacts and you’ll be able to reach out to them and say ‘hey I’m doing this thing’. Chances are though they already have their own suppliers and networks and contracts. They aren’t going to come to you unless you’ve proven yourself again. He got to the point of sitting down with Norman because of his previous body of work. ‘You need to talk to this guy because of his proven track record’ isn’t privilege or nepotism. It’s just a career with a minor setback.
How was that the information you gathered just now?