Metro 2033 film adaptation is in the works again

Metro 2033, the post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that inspired a game of the same name, is being made into a movie.

Russian production company Gazprom Media are adapting the 2002 novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky into a feature film scheduled to release in early 2022, Variety reports.

Metro 2033 is already a huge international franchise. The post-apocalyptic universe is made up of the original Glukhovsky trilogy, which includes Metro 2033, Metro 2034 and Metro 2035, hundreds of tie-in novels written by fans, and several video games. The first novel in the series has been translated into 40 languages, with more than five million copies sold.

This will be the first film adaptation of Glukhovsky’s work.

But it isn't the first time a film adaptation has been attempted. MGM acquired the rights to the extremely Russian novel in 2012 with plans to set the story in Washington D.C. before production halted and the rights were reverted back to Glukhovsky.

The film's producer Evgeniy Nikishov has suggested the project could benefit from the growing interest in post-apocalyptic pop culture.

"In the last decades, a real mass culture cult of post-apocalyptic fiction has taken shape in our country, therefore, it bears great box-office potential," Nikishov said. "Books by the Strugatsky Brothers and Dmitry Glukhovsky, the Fallout and The Last of Us video games, the Walking Dead series, and the Mad Max [movies] are just a few titles on the list of those that are popular with Russians of all ages. That's why we are planning the largest-scale advertising campaign we have ever done."

This is a good excuse to go back and have a read of our interview with Glukhovsky on politics, writing for video games, video game publishers, and the failed Metro movie adaptation.