A24’s Death Stranding movie has found its director. Michael Sarnoski, who helmed A Quiet Place: Day One and Pig, will direct the live-action adaptation of the Death Stranding franchise, A24 announced Monday. Sarnoski is also writing the screenplay, the company said.
“The film will delve into the mysteries surrounding the ‘Death Stranding’ – a catastrophic series of events that blurred the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead, bringing forth nightmarish creatures into a fragmented world on the brink of collapse,” A24 reconfirmed in a news release on Monday, a reminder that the movie will serve as prequel fodder to the games.
The game Death Stranding and its upcoming sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, are both set decades after the events of the apocalyptic Death Stranding, during which creatures known as Beached Things began roaming the Earth, causing nuclear bomb-level destructive events known as voidouts, which left behind a deadly rain that rapidly ages anything it touches.
The story focus of the Death Stranding movie seems like a good fit for Sarnoski, who delivered a commercially and critically successful prequel to the Quiet Place series with last year’s Day One. Sarnoski is a multi-award-winning director; he won both the National Board of Review Award for Best Directorial Debut and the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay for Pig. Sarnoski’s feature-film debut, Pig starred Nicolas Cage as a hermit who lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest and is forced to return to civilization when his beloved truffle-hunting pig is stolen.
Sarnoski’s next project is The Death of Robin Hood, which focuses on the fabled thief’s late-life regrets and stars Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer. The Death of Robin Hood is also an A24 release.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will continue the story of porter Sam Bridges (Norman Reedus), Fragile (Léa Seydoux), BB, and Higgs (Troy Baker) when it’s released in June. The returning cast will be joined by new characters played by Elle Fanning (Tomorrow), Shioli Kutsuna (Rainy), and George Miller (Tarman). Also joining the cast are Luca Marinelli as Neil, Debra Wilson as Doctor, and Alissa Jung as Lucy — and, of course, whoever Kojima has had face-scanned at Kojima Productions HQ in recent years.
