Squeamish sorts can rest assured that Death Stranding’s live-action movie adaptation won’t have the same level of violence as director Michael Sarnoski’s previous films, but it will, he says, still honour the video game’s “bleak and barren post-apocalyptic environment”.
Sarnoski, who also helmed 2024’s A Quiet Place: Day One, discussed his plans for the upcoming Death Stranding film while chatting about his current Robin Hood movie with GamesRadar. The Death of Robin Hood, you see, is a rather bloody affair, with several characters getting arrows to the eye and other such uncomfortable mutilations. Thankfully for those more squeamish amongst us (ahem, me), the director said this won’t be the sort of thing we will see in his Death Stranding adaptation, though violence does still have a place.
“There’s some violence to it. I mean, Death Stranding is a brutal world,” Sanoski explained. “It’s a world where it feels like death is just around the corner. So there needs to be that sort of visceral sense of, ‘Oh, this could be it’.” So while there’s “violence and action” to be found in Death Stranding’s “bleak and barren post-apocalyptic environment”, its role “is very different” to what viewers will see in The Death of Robin Hood – a film he says “kind of questions” violence.
“In Death Stranding, the sort of violence and action is about exploration and about understanding the world more deeply,” he added. “So there will be some, but you’re not gonna see a lot of jaws getting ripped off in Death Stranding.”
In a separate conversation with Variety, Sarnoski revealed he had recently handed in a second draft of the Death Stranding script, with the plan being for filming to start next year in Iceland and Northern Ireland. “This takes place in the world of the video game, but I have my own set of characters,” he said. “There are some overlapping characters that fans will be excited to see, but it’s very much my own story within this universe.”
We first got word of a live-action Death Stranding film back in 2022, when the game’s creator Hideo Kojima called it a “pivotal moment” for the series. A year later, he announced Kojima Productions would be collaborating with A24 on the movie, saying it will be a film for fans of the games as well as anyone who loves cinema. “We are creating a Death Stranding universe that has never been seen before,” Kojima said at the time, “achievable only through the medium of film, it will be born”.
In addition to the live-action adaptation, there is an animated Death Stranding film in development with Raised by Wolves creator Aaron Guzikowski. This will be targeted toward adults, with both the John Wick animated prequel and sci-fi horror Predator: Killer of Killers cited as examples of what viewers can expect. This will also feature an original story set within the Death Stranding world, and is expected to release on Disney Plus in 2027.
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