John Carpenter stopped potential CanalPlus Metal Gear Solid lawsuit

The many similarities between Escape from New York and Metal Gear Solid would have led to a lawsuit were it not for director John Carpenter.

Hideo Kojima’s game contains lots of references to the 1981 film, the most well know of which is Snake’s name and likeness.

[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,” Carpenter told The Hollywood Reporter. I know the director of those games, and he’s a nice guy, or at least he’s nice to me.”

Less fortunate than Konami and Kojima, however, was Luc Besson, whose movie Lockout was targeted by lawyers for its similarities to the Kurt Russell film.

[CanalPlus] 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,” he added. 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.

The great thing is, I didn’t have to do anything, really. That’s the kind of the job I’ve always wanted — where you don’t have to show up, and something happens. And we won! But any great dreams of retiring wealthy were shattered because they didn’t give us as much money as CanalPlus wanted. They wanted to get Luc Besson. They didn’t like it.”