Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima is often known for referencing his favourite pieces of media throughout the Metal Gear series. However the man responsible for many cult hits such as The Thing and Halloween, John Carpenter, has revealed he once had to step in to prevent Kojima being sued over copyright issues.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Carpenter revealed that CanalPlus, a French company who share the rights to cult action movie Escape from New York, were ready to sue Konami.
“They wanted to go after the video game Metal Gear Solid, which is kind of a rip-off of Escape From New York,” said Carpenter “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.”
The companies main gripe appeared to be the similarities that Solid Snake shared with Snake Plissken, the main character of the film, in terms of their appearance and their names. Kojima went some way in explaining the reasoning behind Solid Snake’s name. Last year Kojima tweeted out a small message stating “The reason I used Snake as code name in MG was snake was the most appropriate symbol of living thing that hides his presence.”
This isn’t the first time Carpenter and CanalPlus have been involved in a copyright case as just last week the company successfully managed to sue Europacorp for issues relating to the same movie. They felt that the 2012 movie entitled “Lockout” had plagiarised their film and won $91,000 as a result.
