John Carpenter (writer and director for Escape from New York) didn’t want to sue Kojima ‘because he’s a nice guy’

Famous movie director John Carpenter spoke in an interview with Hollywood Reporter about a lawsuit against Luc Besson regarding Escape From New York (a movie Kojima took inspiration from when creating Metal Gear Solid).

Look, CanalPlus is the company that, with me, owns Escape From New York. They came to me and said, “Luc Besson ripped you off on Lockout.” Or Lockdown, whatever the hell that was. And they sent me the movie, and yes, he did. It’s the same story. (Laughs) I mean, you can’t do that, can you? You have to change a couple things. He’s after the president’s daughter? Come on. So I took him to French court.

But due to similarities, the company also wanted to sue Metal Gear Solid.

[CanalPlus] wanted to also 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.

Kojima is a big fan of Carpenter’s work, and often references it in his games. Carpenter knows Kojima’s work as well: his comments praising MGS2 can be found on a pamphlet included with the Premium Package.

Source: Hollywood Reporter, via Destructoid