If you’ve watched John Carpenter’s Escape from New York and played Metal Gear Solid, you’ll have noticed a number of similarities between the action film and Kojima’s stealth epic. Not the least of which is the protagonist’s name, along with the signature eyepatch that shows up on Big Boss, and the underwater craft he uses to sneak into Shadow Moses.

You’d think John Carpenter or CanalPlus which owns the rights to Escape from New York would sue. As it turns out, while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about the legal tussle with Luc Besson over Lockdown, Carpenter revealed that this was the company’s intention for Kojima as well.

“CanalPlus wanted to go after the video game Metal Gear Solid, which is kind of a rip-off of Escape From New York, too. But I told them not to do that. I know the director of those games, and he’s a nice guy, or at least he’s nice to me.”

Too bad Konami wasn’t as nice to Kojima, huh?

“I maintain that Dead Space would just make a great movie because you have these people coming onto an abandoned, shut-down space ship and they have to start it up and something’s on board. It’s just great stuff. I would love to make Dead Space [into a film], I’ll tell you that right now. That one is ready-made.”

Which is hilarious, because the first game took many of its story cues and settings from a cult classic sci-fi horror film: Event Horizon. The presence of evil aboard a high-tech ship, the psychological horror and hallucinations, manipulating people via said visions and increasingly violent deaths?

All there. Combined with the Thing and Alien, of course, as Carpenter suggests.

Granted, the franchise has since expanded, but it seems a bit redundant to make a film on the original game.