MOVIE NEWS – There is a simple yet understandable explanation behind why Dmitry Glukhovsky‘s novel did not receive a cinematic adaptation.

Glukhovsky told VG247 that his 2005 novel, Metro 2033, which was announced to head to the big screen in 2016, has its film adaptation cancelled. The scriptwriter, F. Scott Grazier would have „Americanized” the plot by moving it from Moscow to Washington, which, according to the Russian writer, „did not work out.”

„A lot of things didn’t work out in Washington DC. In Washington DC, Nazis don’t work, Communists don’t work at all, and the Dark Ones (the human-like mutants that seem to be the antagonists) don’t work. Washington DC is a black city basically. That’s not at all the allusion I want to have, it’s a metaphor of general xenophobia, but it’s not a comment on African Americans at all. So it didn’t work. They had to replace the Dark Ones with some kind of random beasts, and as long as the beasts don’t look human, the entire story of xenophobia doesn’t work which was very important to me as a convinced internationalist. They turned it into a very generic thing,” Glukhovsky said. He added that MGM moved the story from Russia to the United States because „Americans have a reputation for liking stories about America.”

„With Metro Last Light and Metro 2033—the books and the games—selling millions and millions of copies worldwide, it’s probably not as improbable now that people would accept a story happening in Moscow because that’s going to be the unique selling point. We’ve seen the American version of apocalypse a lot of times and the audience that like the genre are educated and saturated and not really wishing to get any more of that,” Glukhovsky added. He’s still hopeful about Metro 2033 getting a cinematic adaptation at one point.

Perhaps Metro Exodus, which will launch on February 22 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC,  might help him.

Source: PCGamer