Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the game, creator Hideo Kojima gave fans a big birthday present. After years of trying to make it happen, a Metal Gear: Solid movie is back on track with major producer Avi Arad and Columbia Pictures.

After building up massive comic book properties like Spider-Man, Arad is now in the business of adapting video games. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is up on deck, and now it’s time for Solid Snake – who has appropriately spent years not being seen – to get his own feature. It was probably the time that Paul Thomas Anderson was rumored to be interested in the project that stood out the most in its development history, but with a big stage announcement like this, Arad is putting a lot of weight behind making this thing a reality.

The question of who should write and direct is a big one, but perhaps an even better one is whether or not a movie can somehow outdo a video game series that’s so cinematic to begin with. [The Verge]