A Bioshock Movie Is On The Way
Fans of the iconic BioShock franchise have been praying for a movie adaption to be made ever since Gore Verbinski’s version was canned before it got off the ground back in 2010. It has now been announced that Netflix will fund and distribute a dystopian story set in the world of Rapture.
The biggest streaming company on the globe has struck a deal with Take-Two Interactive, (who own the Bioshock IP,) to adapt the game’s narrative into a feature film and potentially develop a cinematic universe in the future. Vertigo Entertainment and Take-Two be listed as producers on the movie. Whilst this deal has only just been finalised, it has apparently brewing for the past year.
At the time of writing, there has been no cast or crew announcements made. Fans have been speculating on whether Gore Verbinski will have anything to do with the project, as he had already started developing the project just over a decade ago. The main reason that his original version never came to pass was due to the budget and rating being requested by the filmmaker not lining up with what the studio had in mind.
Hopefully, whoever ends up helming this Bioshock movie is given free reign to explore the dark, twisted nature of the universe in the source material. The narrative in the series has always been inherently dark, given the clear parallels to George Orwell’s 1984 and the works of Ayn Rand. Trying to tell a PG-13 Bioshock story is just something that wouldn’t work.
Fortunately, it seems to be far easier to get an R-rated project funded in 2022 than it was back in 2010; thanks to films like Deadpool and It being commercially successful.
It is also important to consider the contemporary attitude towards videogame adaptions as opposed to how it was ten years ago. Sure, it still somewhat feels like we are still to see a truly great videogame adaption, but with the success of movies like Tomb Raider and the recent Uncharted film, along with The Witcher on Netflix and The Last Of Us on HBO, it certainly feels like we are getting closer.
The original Bioshock game was developed by a division of 2K called Irrational Games and was released in 2007. It took place in an underwater city called rapture and incorporated themes of action, mystery, science fiction, horror, film noir and dystopian storytelling. The game garnered huge critical acclaim and spawned two sequels.
In November 2021, it emerged via Twitter that a new Bioshock game was in the pipeline called; Bioshock: Isolation. This was as a result of a leak and the existence of a new Bioshock game has not yet been confirmed at the time of writing. However, between the Isolation logo leaking in November and a new Bioshock sequel being included in the Nvidia leak from earlier in 2021, I would say that it is pretty safe to assume that another Bioshock game is in the works.
What do you make of this news? Are you excited at the prospect of a Bioshock movie or are you still apprehensive about studios adapting videogames into movies? Let us know in the comments section below.
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