Hideo Kojima Says He Wants to Die Right Before a Movie Starts

The Perfect Exit

Hideo Kojima has a very specific idea of how he would like to go. The Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator, speaking at an outdoor film festival in Rome earlier this month, told the audience that he hopes to die in a movie theater. Not during a film, mind you. Right before one.

“I love the bit before the movie starts the most,” Kojima said in Japanese, as translated by IGN. “Enter the movie theater, the lights go off and commercials and trailers play, yeah? I’d like to die just before the movie starts.”

Kojima, who is 62 and has long described himself as a devoted cinemaphile, delivered the line in a serious tone with a hint of a smile. His X account profile famously states that 70% of his body is made up of movies, so the sentiment tracks. The quip came during his appearance at the Piccolo America Foundation’s 12th edition of Il Cinema in Piazza, a beloved outdoor festival held in Rome.

Films, Panels, and Exploitation Cinema

Kojima was not just passing through Rome for a photo opportunity. According to IGN, he participated in panel discussions and introduced several films during the festival. On July 4, he introduced Shunya Ito’s 1972 film Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, the second entry in Japanese studio Toei’s exploitation series. Kojima highlighted the film’s inventive cinematography and the young crew’s commitment to doing something genuinely distinctive on a very limited budget, citing those qualities as an inspiration to him as a game creator.

The Female Prisoner Scorpion series has a long reach. The films and their star, Meiko Kaji, were a significant influence on Quentin Tarantino, who borrowed Kaji’s theme song Urami Bushi for the soundtrack to Kill Bill.

Kojima also introduced Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso from 1975, praising the specific moment in the film when both the protagonist and the viewer simultaneously arrive at the same realization. That kind of precise, shared discovery is exactly the sort of thing Kojima has chased throughout his career as a designer.

A Mind That Has Been Thinking About Time

This is not the first occasion Kojima has addressed his own mortality in public. As reported by VGC, he revealed to Edge magazine that he left his staff a USB stick loaded with game ideas to be used after he dies. That conversation stemmed from a significant shift in perspective that happened during the pandemic.

“Turning 60 was less of a turning point in my life than my experiences during the pandemic,” Kojima told Edge. “I fell seriously ill at that time, and also had an eye operation. Until then, I didn’t think I was old, you know? I just didn’t feel my age, and I assumed I would be able to create for as long as I live. But then I became sick, and I couldn’t create anything. And I saw lots of people around me passing away at that time. I was confronted with death.”

He recovered, but the reckoning stayed with him. “Perhaps I have 10 years?” he wondered aloud in that interview about how much time he has left to make games or films.

In a separate conversation with GQ, Kojima was even more direct about what frightens him. “What I am most afraid of is time,” he said. “I am afraid of dying and having dementia. I am afraid of forgetting things when I get old. I am afraid that I won’t even realise what I am forgetting.”

That fear found a creative outlet last year when Kojima revealed a concept for a game he called a ‘Forgetting Game,’ in which a player’s character would gradually lose important information and abilities the longer they stayed away from the controller.

All of which makes that Rome quip land a little differently on second read. For a man who treasures the anticipation of a film more than the film itself, who has built a career out of the moments just before something big happens, dying in the dark while the trailers roll sounds less like a joke and more like a considered preference.