Jordan Vogt-Roberts is a massive Metal Gear Solid fan. "That's one of the most important franchises to me on the planet," he says. "Not even just as a video game, but as a piece of media." In fact, Vogt-Roberts' passion for the franchise explains why Sony recruited him to helm Metal Gear Solid's big-screen adaptation back in 2014.

But why wait? While development on Metal Gear Solid continues—allegedly, Vogt-Roberts is still working to get the script just right—the director couldn't help but put a little bit of Metal Gear into Skull Island. The ramshackle boat that John C. Reilly's character lends to Skull Island's stranded adventurers is named "Gray Fox." If that sounds familiar to you, you've probably played a lot of video games.

See, Gray Fox is also a recurring character who's been a part of the Metal Gear franchise since the very beginning. In Metal Gear on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Gray Fox goes missing, and hero Solid Snake must rescue him. In Metal Gear Solid, Gray Fox resurfaces as the Cyborg Ninja, and provides Snake with crucial intel under the name Deepthroat.

According to Vogt-Roberts, Gray Fox was only supposed to be the tip of the iceberg when it came to Skull Island's Metal Gear Solid references. Screenwriter Dan Gilroy wrote a sequence in which Tom Hiddleston's character breaks into a military base, and Vogt-Roberts claims he was going to "get very Metal Gear with it" before the scene was cut. Thankfully, the storyboards for the scene still exist, giving a brief glimpse as to what Vogt-Roberts has in store if and when Metal Gear Solid emerges from development hell.