It appears that MGM’s film adaptation of “Metro 2033” is no longer happening because “a lot of things didn’t work,” according to VG24/7.
“Metro 2033” is a novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was also adapted into a series of successful survival horror shooters from video game publisher THQ and developer 4A Games in 2010. The book and games are set in a post-apocalyptic version of Moscow where humanity lives in the tunnels of the old metro after a nuclear blast.
The movie was supposed to follow the events of the book, but MGM reportedly tried to Americanize it by setting it in Washington D.C. That idea apparently didn’t work, and the film’s rights have reverted to Glukhovsky, the author told VG24/7 in a recent interview.
“A lot of things didn’t work out in Washington D.C.,” he said. “In Washington D.C., Nazis don’t work, Communists don’t work at all, and the Dark Ones don’t work. Washington D.C. is a black city, basically. That’s not at all the allusion I want to have, it’s a metaphor of general xenophobia but it’s not a comment on African-Americans at all. So it didn’t work.”
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“They had to replace the Dark Ones with some kind of random beasts, and as long as the beasts don’t look human the entire story of xenophobia doesn’t work, which was very important to me as a convinced internationalist. They turned it into a very generic thing.”
Glukovsky goes on to say that MGM was afraid to set the movie in Moscow because Americans like stories about America. But, he sees “Metro 2033’s” Russian setting as a unique selling point. “We’ve seen the American version of apocalypse a lot of times and the audience that like the genre are educated and saturated and not really wishing to get anymore of that,” he said.
Glukovsky said he’s currently speaking with a new set of producers about a possible film adaptation. “We’ll see if the release of ‘Metro Exodus’ can push the IP across a little bit the oceans and see how that works,” he said.
“Metro Exodus,” the next video game in the series, is expected to release on Feb. 22.
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