Advertisement
BioShock movie on the way News
Xbox 360 News by Ellie Gibson
Universal Studios has announced plans to bring hit Xbox 360 shooter BioShock to the big screen.
The film will be directed by Gore Verbinski, whose previous credits include the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and The Ring. John Logan, who wrote Gladiator, The Aviator and Sweeney Todd, is in talks to produce the screenplay.
As reported by Variety, Verbinski is jolly excited about BioShock's unique setting and storyline. Apparently he's particularly inspired by the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters, plus the art deco stylings of Rapture.
"I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that's cleverly unveiled to players is just brimming with cinematic potential," he stated. "Of all the games I've played, this is one that I felt has a really strong narrative."
Verbinski has already been consulting with Ken Levine, the game's creative director, but it's not clear if he'll have an official role in the film's production.
Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick was responsible for negotiating the deal with Universal. "One of the things we decided early on is that we didn't want to go through a producer. It's terribly important to us to have a meaningful influence on how this project is produced. We didn't want any insulation between us," he commented.
According to Variety this is the biggest videogame-movie deal since 2005, when Universal and Fox signed up to produce a Halo movie. That project has since fallen in the toilet, but Zelnick is promising that won't happen with BioShock.
"The reason I structured it the way I did is to make sure it gets made," he said.
A release date for the film has yet to be set, but Verbinski said he wants to begin pre-production as soon as the script is ready. Meanwhile a sequel to the original videogame is also in development, and due to arrive late next year.
Advertisement
Are you excited about BioShock 2 on PC/Xbox 360?
View Eurogamer readers most anticipated games
Thanks!
Related Games
BioShock
BioShock 2
Latest Features
-
BioShock Interview [48]
-
BioShock Review [1109]
-
BioShock First Impressions [74]
-
BioShock Interview [45]
-
BioShock Interview [37]
Latest Videos
Exclusive: BioShock comparison video [15] 4 November, 2008
Bioshock - Plasmid powers [4] 14 August, 2007
Latest News
-
BioShock 1 due for Mac next month [32]
-
Spanish director in BioShock talks [14]
-
BioShock man working on new shooter [13]
-
BioShock and Oblivion UK bundle dated [25]
-
BioShock to get novelisation [14]
Latest Screenshots
20 August, 2007 [30]
Release Date Out now!
Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!
Comments: 1-45 of 45 in total
Poster
|
Britesparc
09/05/08 @ 08:50
0
This is probably the first game adap that could genuinely be very good - not just okay, but actually a very, very good film. It's five-star material, and arguably the twisty stuff and moral ambiguity could work better in a film (I'm assuming they won't recreate the boss fight at the end...).
Verbinski is good, the fucking awful Pirates sequels notwithstanding (the first Pirates was amazing!) so I have very very high hopes for this...! |
|
0
It's being directed by Gore. It'll be absolutely shite like the Pirates films and they will probably change the script during filming like they did last time. I can't believe any of you think Gore is a good director.
I also can't believe some of you are excited about a film based on a game. Historically they have all been average at best unless your standards are naturally low (take a look at them and weep): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fil... |
|
thedaveeyres
09/05/08 @ 09:09
0
I am unreasonable excited by this. This is a 33 year old man going, "Squeeee"....
SQUEEEEEEE |
|
asphaltcowboy
09/05/08 @ 09:20
0
previous credits include the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Problem right there! EDIT: For the record, I loved the first film!
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 09/05/08 @ 10:20
|
|
DanWhitehead
09/05/08 @ 09:22
0
Verbinski had very little control over the scripts for any of the POTC movies. Take away the bloated, meandering stories and they're all extremely well made. He's certainly not a mindless blockbuster hack.
|
|
japstersam
09/05/08 @ 09:35
0
even if the pirates sequels were crap, at least they had high production values and looked spectacular, even if they were rubbish. so i cant help but get pretty excited about this, imagine rapture on the big screen :D:D
|
|
DanWhitehead
09/05/08 @ 09:40
0
really? then what's the point of his movies?
Verbinski's other movies have all been extremely well-crafted, from a directorial point of view. I actually consider Mousehunt to be an unsung modern comedy classic. Judge him on those, and Pirates visual style, but don't hold him responsible for things - like the awful Pirates sequel "scripts" - that were dumped on him by Jerry Bruckheimer. |
|
0
@systems
In all fairness though, most of the films on that list have pretty poor/non existent storylines to begin with. Personally I think this really is the first game to movie adaptation which starts from an interesting story. Tomb raider and Resident Evil films were not too bad though. Also found a mistake in that list - somehow I don't think Ironman the film was based on the video game. If it was then that is the first sub average game transformed into a blockbuster. |
|
schachmatt
09/05/08 @ 09:44
0
Bioshock's story about dictatorship gone wrong and genetic manipulation as an excuse for the magical abilities was generic dross already spit out by many other games.
The was no story evolution in the whole game; already in the beginning you knew everything there was to it and then you're sent on fetch-quests for the rest of the time. Even if there wouldn't have been such a fuss (often from game "critics" themselves) about how super the story is I would have been disappointed. Try to tell the game's story to someone, who doesn't play videogames without being mocked. If that is the pinnacle of storytelling in games ... it just makes me sad. |
|
schachmatt
09/05/08 @ 10:04
0
Considering how many of those videogame projects break down along the way (and are often just announced as pr) I'm still hopeful that Hollywood has better stories to tell.
|
|
0
The biggest issue here is that - to get bums on seats - the most it will be is a 12 rating. ie, not scary, no blood, no nuthin'. It will look fantastic but be an empty huske. Like Captain Tomorrow And His Sky-Plane of Yesterday or whatever the fuck it was called...
But. I would still like to see it. Especially the back-story and how Rapture was built. And that. |
|
Britesparc
09/05/08 @ 10:13
0
Try to tell the game's story to someone, who doesn't play videogames without being mocked. If that is the pinnacle of storytelling in games ... it just makes me sad.
I too will take you up on this today, and see if I'm mocked... on a sorta related note, I made a reference to Grim Fandango at work yesterday and as a consequence had to explain the plot of the game. By the time I'd finished everyone in the room thought it sounded incredibly cool. |
|
schachmatt
09/05/08 @ 10:20
0
DiamondIce and Britesparc, if you manage to tell it in a way that doesn't make the whole room either go real quiet or laughing you out, then I'm commending you to write the screenplay (or work at the pr-department of 2k).
|
|
Muddtallica
09/05/08 @ 10:26
0
Britesparc: That's because the plot of Grim Fandango is genuinely brilliant, and yes, incredibly cool. I would say I'd love to see a film made of that, but when the game itself was already so flawless as a storytelling experience, what would be the point?
Anyway, this actually sounds fairly promising; perhaps the first time a game with a respectable, well-regarded story has been taken on by a similarly professional film-making team. Between this and Mike Newell's Prince of Persia film, maybe that decent game-to-film adaptation might finally be upon us... |
|
0
"Between this and Mike Newell's Prince of Persia film, maybe that decent game-to-film adaptation might finally be upon us... "
I still maintain that the Silent Hill film wasn't too shabby at all...but then again I am a Silent Hill fanboy and I loved the director's previous film Brotherhood of the Wolf. I have never experienced a louder film at the cinema...especially the part when the baby-like things start wailing and screaming, that was really intense in the cinema. Yeah the story wasn't great (but that's not the main draw of the game series for me anyway), but the effects were pretty damn good. A more coherent story would have been prefered but I still liked it damn it! :) |
|
0
@schachmatt
Bioshock's story about dictatorship gone wrong and genetic manipulation as an excuse for the magical abilities was generic dross already spit out by many other games. The was no story evolution in the whole game; already in the beginning you knew everything there was to it and then you're sent on fetch-quests for the rest of the time. While I agree with you regarding the fetch quests, your other points are hardly valid. Rapture wasn't a dictatorship, rather an attempt at building an utopian/objectivist society. The story evolution was present - at the beginning the player only knew that something was very wrong with this experiment. As to the "what and how" - that was the whole point of the journey, the discovery. That's actually the difficult part where the film might fail, it's not that easy to include all the information and backstory from the audio recordings without referring to other characters. And the interaction with others is definitely a limiting factor, considering you met other friendly people only a few times in the game. The plasmids and genetic manipulation was a slight cop-out (too much of the magic) yet it did fit in with the whole climate of abusing creative freedom. As for the twist - while perhaps not the greatest revealing moment in history, it was not expected, at least not by me. In fact, it did cleverly explain the very linearity of the game. Now, I don't think that Bioshock was a masterpiece, especially when gameplay was concerned but it did stand out from the generic dross of other games. On a side note, I did tell the story to somebody who doesn't play games and it wasn't mocked in any way. |
|
YourMessageHere
09/05/08 @ 11:15
0
Oh no, another one broken before it's made. Bioshock is not the same sort of thing as Pirates of the cocking Caribbean or that supposedly laughable Ring remake; based on track record the choice of director is not suitable at all. Never seen Sweeney Todd or The Aviator but Gladiator was fucking awful, so a no vote there too.
And for the millionth time, the special thing about Bioshock was not the story itself, but the way it was told. Remember those good old days when Hollywood had its own ideas and was the envy of the world? Me neither... |
|
0
This could be very good. Story-wise, I'm not sure how they could make it work. I recommend against a straight adaption of the game. Maybe a prequel that details the fall of Rapture and the battle between Fontaine and Ryan. And end it with a sneaky hint of the coming of Jack, like showing a plane falling from the sky or something.
Gore is a good director and the art style lends itself very well to cinematic interpretation. (Am I just repeating what was said?) But yeah. Cool. |
|
0
Wait Guilliarmo del Toro was in the offing,
-I feel cheated Also even if they managed to get a script that did it justice it would be nowhere near as good as the game, only hours of uncovering the hidden history of the fallen can leave the impression that Bioshock does. But games have never reminded me of the short hoary flash of films theve reminded of the continuing draw of a book in the case of games like Bioshock. Additionally Bioshocks story was immense not because of what went on in it but because of the rich philosophical texture that it evoked coupled with confusion over aspects of this created by the voices of those that had gone before. I still hope theyll get it right allthough I dont think I could stand it if someone like Ebert waded in and said that bioshock was better as a film than a game. |
|
0
BioShock has the most mature and cinematic narrative of any game I've ever played. I don't have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to praise it.
That said, I'm not sure how well it would translate on the silver screen. In my opinion, a film centering on the construction of Rapture, and particularly on Ryan's character - his ambition, his philosophy before the utopia was built, and his slow descent into madness - would be awesome. BioShock has more than enough elements to make a dozen movies or even a TV series à la Band of Brothers. This is why the element the movie focuses on has to be judiciously picked. If they try to do too much or follow the video game too closely, it'll flop. Having a guy rummage through art-deco underwater rubble listening to tapes and seeing ghosts for 2 hours certainly wouldn't work. Telling the story of Rapture before the fall, or that of it's creator, or both - is a better idea. This has a lot of potential for greatness. It also has a good chance of being shit.
Edited 3 times,
most recently on 10/05/08 @ 16:16
|
|
0
In my opinion, a film centering on the construction of Rapture, and particularly on Ryan's character - his ambition, his philosophy before the utopia was built, and his slow descent into madness - would be awesome.
Totally agree. BioShock is a great game but there's not so much of a story in there (just some neat plot twists). It would be great to see the city in its Metropolis-style days of glory. |
Comments: 1-45 of 45 in total
Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!
