Powerful, ethereal aesthetics where the cinematography reveals as much of the story as what comes out of characters’ mouths; intense arthouse vibes; mesmerising collusions of soundtracks, imagery, and performance.
It’s surprisingly hard to pin down exactly what makes an A24 movie an A24 movie, and yet when you’re watching a movie produced by A24, you’ll probably know it. Hereditary, The Lighthouse, Ex Machina, Midsommar, The Whale are the best embodiments of that distinctive A24 style (yep, they aren’t usually very ‘happy’ movies), although the award-winning Everything, Everywhere, All At Once did buck the production studio’s trend somewhat with its more upbeat tones (while still managing to be a subversive and unconventional superhero movie).
Death Stranding Is Proof Not All Games Need Boss Fights
Sometimes it pays to do your own thing.
Building Bridges
Kojima said in a statement on theKojima Productions website:
“There are a lot of ‘game adaptation films’ out there but what we are creating is not just a direct translation of the game… the intention is that our audience will not only be fans of the games, but our film will be for anyone who loves cinema. We are creating a Death Stranding universe that has never been seen before, achievable only through the medium of film, it will be born.”
Now, a couple of years ago, it would be surprising, even unthinkable, to imagine an artsy film outfit like A24 getting its hands grubby with a video game adaptation. Maybe Netflix would dabble in an animated adaptation that’d basically be an entirely new story that happens to be set in the game’s universe (Castlevania, Arcane: A League of Legends Story, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners), but a full-on adaptation? In the past, that’d have been reserved for craphouse directors like Uwe Boll and streaming services like Crackle.
HBO’s The Last of Us had a big part to play in the seachange of how movie and TV studios view games, being the first live-action direct adaptation of a video game into a prestige critically acclaimed show. Suddenly, esteemed producers at HBO and A24 are actually looking at video games (probably for the first time ever) and realising that there’s legitimately good material there for adaptation.
And Death Stranding plus A24 really is a good fit. You know the film’s gonna be beautifully shot, meticulously paced, and most likely going to lean into the solitude and stark beauty of the game’s world rather than the combat and all that gamey silliness. Kojima’s involved as Executive Producer, which is great as far as I’m concerned as it means he won’t be directing (because let’s be honest: that’d probably be a disaster).
Old Faces, Or New?
I see an Alex Garland (Annihilation, Ex Machine) or Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Dune) at the helm for this one—both directors who’ve made films under the A24 umbrella before, and both of whom have a track record for tasteful, melancholy, more downbeat sci-fi that would be well suited for Death Stranding.
I’m fascinated to see how it goes, and whether any of the game’s star-studded cast—Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Lea Seydoux, among others—will return for the movie. One thing that’s certain is that A24 is a great fit for this movie, and it’s great news for games that they’re finally getting attention from the more refined side of the movie industry.
10 Video Games That Deserve TV Adaptations
From Wolfenstein to Death Stranding, here are the best games that deserve their own TV show adaptation.
