BioShock Movie Director Gives Update On the Game Adaptation, & It’s “Getting Close”
Netflix’s highly anticipated BioShock movie is getting closer to reality, but another behind-the-scenes shake-up could delay the movie again. Director Francis Lawrence says development on the adaptation of the beloved 2007 video game is moving forward, but recent changes in Netflix’s leadership are causing some consternation. It’s the latest obstacle in the path of a movie that Hollywood has been trying to make for almost two decades. Gore Verbinski and Guillermo Del Toro both attempted to bring the underwater city of Rapture to the big screen, and found that building anything on the bottom of the sea floor can be tough.
While promoting his latest film The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping with The Direct, Lawrence admitted, “It is a tough nut to crack that world and that story,” particularly because the filmmakers are “creating that character from scratch” rather than relying on the player’s experience. There’s also the matter of the studio itself. “Netflix right now has had regime changes and just all of that kind of nonsense,” Lawrence explained. With several projects competing for his attention, including an adaptation of Red Rising, there’s still no guarantee that BioShock will be the next movie he directs.
The biggest challenge is how to adapt the game’s storytelling, with its silent protagonist, into a traditional movie. The original BioShock follows Jack, a mysterious survivor who finds himself in Rapture, an underwater city where an experiment in unfettered capitalism and scientific freedom has gone horribly wrong. The biggest revelation of the game is the player believing they are making their own decisions. It’s a twist that could lose a lot of its punch when you’re watching other people make those choices. Recreating Rapture’s signature Art Deco architecture and its terrifying Big Daddies may actually be the easy part.
BioShock Has Already Defeated Some of Hollywood’s Biggest Directors
Guillermo Del Toro also identified the same fundamental problem Lawrence is facing. “The storytelling is very different, because you’re not solving puzzles. You’re not assembling,” he explained, pointing out that games give players the illusion of making their own decisions while guiding them through a predetermined narrative. It’s an especially important aspect of BioShock, where the question of free will is central to the story.
Gore Verbinski, the director of Pirates of the Caribbean, got considerably further. Universal acquired the rights in 2008 and Verbinski teamed with screenwriter John Logan to craft an ambitious R-rated adaptation. The project was said to be just weeks away from shooting when budget concerns scuttled the production. Eventually concept art from the scrapped movie leaked, revealing intricate designs of Rapture and its residents. Verbinski even said that he and Logan had worked out how to include both endings from the original game, which suggests they had solved at least one of the adaptation’s big problems. Here’s a look at the game’s original opening:
Netflix announced its own BioShock adaptation in 2022, eventually bringing Lawrence aboard to direct. Producer Roy Lee has since confirmed that the movie will draw from the original game rather than its sequels. After nearly 20 years, multiple directors, and enough abandoned production plans to fill Rapture’s archives, the movie still hasn’t made it in front of cameras. Lawrence sounds optimistic, but getting Netflix to finally move forward might require someone to politely ask the executives, “Would you kindly?”
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