“Bioshock,” the movie, is dead. The film adaptation of the acclaimed video game has been in the works for almost five years now, with Gore Verbinski attached to direct at one point, then later Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (“28 Weeks Later”). The adaptation was indefinitely delayed two years ago and Fresnadillo confirmed last year that he was no longer involved with the project. Needless to say, things have been looking grim with “Bioshock” for a while and Ken Levine, creative director for Irrational Games, has officially put the kibosh on any plans for a movie.
So where did things go wrong? Well Levine blames Zack Snyder‘s “Watchmen,” believe it or not. “There was a deal in place, and it was in production as Universal…My theory is that Gore [Verbinski] wanted to make a hard R film – which is like a 17/18 plus, where you can have blood and naked girls. Well, I don’t think he wanted naked girls. But he wanted a lot of blood. Then ‘Watchmen’ came out, and it didn’t do well for whatever reason,” he told EuroGamer. “The studio then got cold feet about making an R-rated $200 million film, then they said what if it was an $80 million film – and Gore didn’t want to make an $80 million film…” A couple years later and Levine decided to officially pull the plug on the project altogether.
We have certainly heard of Universal getting cold feet on a big budget, R-rated project before; Guillermo del Toro’s “At the Mountains of Madness” immediately comes to mind. You can’t exactly blame Universal for not wanting to put forth the $200 million to get the movie made, but it’s still a shame that nothing ever came about. Of all the video game adaptations out there, “Bioshock” really seemed to be the one with the most potential. That said, it never really seemed like “Bioshock” was going to get made, so at least we can finally put this matter to bed. “Bioshock: The Movie,” we hardly knew ye… [via MovieWeb]
