bioshock-movie posts

So what happened to all those plans for a BioShock movie? At one point it was reported that the film adaptation of Irrational Games' first person shooter was being held up by a budget that was too high. Now in a recent chat over at ComingSoon.net the movie's now former director Gore Verbinski we find out there was another reason for the delay.

According to him, "I couldn't really get past anybody that would spend the money that it would take to do it and keep an R rating. Alternately, I wasn't really interested in pursuing a PG-13 version." We can certainly see his point that any BioShock movie that would be true to the game's vision will indeed have to be bloody and scary in order to work.

There have been some publicly reported budget issues with getting the planne BioShock movie up to production speed. However that doesn't mean the adaptation of Irrational Games' 2007 first person shooter is stalled. Speaking to, of all places, the Washington DC sports radio station DC 106.7, Irrational's head man Ken Levine stated that while he wasn't sure the movie version will ever be made, " ... it's something we are actively discussing, quite actively, and actively working on."

The film was announced by Universal in 2008 with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski signed on to direct. However in 2009 the film was put on hold due to concern that it would be too expensive to produce. Later that year it was revealed that 28 Days Later's director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo would be stepping in to direct the movie with Verbinski moving to a producer role. In June 2010, Verbinski stated that he, Universal and Fresnadillo were still working to " . . . get the budget down."

[Via Kotaku]

The last time we heard something about the BioShock movie things seems to be going well. The film, based on Irrational Games' hit first person shooter, had secured a new director (28 Weeks Later's Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) last year. However it looks like things are still tied up in terms of the movie's budget

IGN chatted with the movie's producer Gore Verbinski who stated he and the movie's studio Universal are working with Fresnadillo to " . . . get the budget down and still keep so it's true to the core audience, you know? The thing is it has to be R, a hard R." He adds, "We don't want to dumb it down, we don't want to make it PG-13. We want to keep it really edgy, and it's a huge bill."

Several months ago, it seems like the planned movie adaptation of BioShock was in danger as its movie studio Universal put the film on hold due to budget issues. Now Variety is reporting that things are back on track as a new director is now in talks to helm the movie version of 2K Boston's 2007 first person shooter.

According to the article, the new possible director is Juan Carlos Fresnadillo who scored a solid critical and box office hit with the 2007 zombie movie sequel 28 Weeks Later. Originally Gore Verbinski, of the Pirates of the Caribbean serie, was to direct but he will still be a producer of the BioShock film. BioShock's game publisher Take Two Interactive still has to approve Fresnadillo as the new director. Filming is now expected to be held overseas in order to cut the budget but there's still no word on when that might happen.

The movie version of BioShock may currently be in limbo but that hasn't stopped the film's schedule director Gore Verbinski from being interested in games. In a new article on the Los Angeles Times web site he reveals that he has plans to help develop original game titles with his production company.

So what will his games be like? According to Verbinski, "Some of the stuff we're doing is taking a conventional [first person shooter] experience and tweaking it in a way that hasn't been thought of before. We looked at it from a different angle and changed the experience. " He adds that he has some other ideas as well. " . . . we're doing big epic narratives that are four quadrant experiences. And then we're doing some really radical thinking. That's more difficult to fund immediately, but we're think-tanking it because we feel like there's tremendous potential."

Verbinski has hired a former Pandemic Studios designer to work on game projects for his production company and Universal Studios has a first look deal at those game projects.

One of the most anticipated game-to-movie translations has hit a snag. Variety is reporting that the upcoming film adaptation of 2K Boston's FPS BioShock has been put on hold at Universal Pictures. The reason is a familar one: cost.

Variety reports through unnamed sources that while the film was deep in pre-production it would have cost $160 million to film the movie in Los Angeles as previously planned. Now Universal and the movie's planned director Gore Verbinski are looking to make the movie outside the US in order to lower its planned budget. The story claims that both the movie studio and Verbinski are determined to have the BioShock movie avoid what happened to the Halo film adaptation which was permanently shut down due to budget issues.

Publisher Take Two Interactive made a big deal out of the fact that movie director Gore Verbinski had signed on to direct a movie version of their hit action game BioShock over a year ago. Now Verbinski is reported to be fast tracking the BioShock film as his next project over a "sure thing" sequel.

Variety reports that Verbinski has turned down an offer to direct a fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series for Disney. He directed the first three movies which together have grossing a whopping $2.6 billion worldwide. The article says Verbinski is likely to direct the BioShock film next for Universal Pictures. The movie already has a script from John Logan but there's no word on when production might begin. Meanwhile the game sequel BioShock 2 is due for release this fall.

Take Two Interactive apparently knows a good franchise when it sees one. Case in point: BioShock. The imaginative first person shooter from Ken Levine's team at 2K Boston/Australia has won tons of awards and, as revealed today in Take Two's latest financial announcement, has shipped 2.2 million copies between the PC and Xbox 360 versions. A few months ago, it was announced that BioShock 2 was in developed at the new 2K Marin studio (Levine will have some input, though) for release sometime in Take Two's 2009 fiscal year (which ends Oct. 31, 2009). A deal to make a BioShock film was also announced earlier this year.

But Take Two is already looking to the far future of the franchise. During the financial analyst conference call today (you can listen to the repeat at Take Two's web site), one analyst asked if the BioShock movie will be released around the same time as BioShock 2. The replay from Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was that it was more likely it would be released around the same time as BioShock 3. Yes, the company is looking far ahead to the next game in the series. Of course, BioShock 2 could be a sales bomb and the BioShock movie could fall into "development hell" so it's way too early to get excited yet. But it's clear Take Two execs want to have something other than the Grand Theft Auto franchise to prop up their revenues.