Despite whatever flicker of hope Ken Levine and the BioShock faithful may have, the movie adaptation of the modern classic Shooter-RPG is not happening and doesn't appear to be close at all to being risen from the dead either. Gore Verbinski, the man who was set to helm the film, also known for his work on Pirates of the Carribean, held an AMA on Reddit recently to promote his upcoming movie, A Cure For Wellness.
In it, a fan inquired about just what happened that made the BioShock movie fall apart. Verbinski gave quite an enlightening answer. He said:
"Well it's no short answer to that question but we were eight weeks prior shooting when the plug was pulled. It's an R rated movie. I wanted to keep it R rated, I felt like that would be appropriate, and it's an expensive movie. It's a massive world we're creating and it's not a world we can simply go to locations to shoot. "A Cure For Wellness", we were able to really utilize a variety of location to create the world. "Bioshock" it wouldn't work like that, we'd be building an entire underworld universe. So I think the combination of the price tag and the rating, universal just didn't feel comfortable ultimately. At that time also there were some R rated, expensive R rated movies that were not working. So I think things have changed and maybe there will be another chance, but it's very difficult when you're eight weeks away from shooting a movie you really can see in your head and you've almost filmed the entire thing, so emotionally you're right at that transition from architect to becoming a contractor and that will be a difficult place to get back to."
Unfortunately, this is just the nature of the beast, and as appealing as "R-rated" is frequently made out to be, it's not often understood that movies with ratings above PG-13 lose a lot of potential ticket customers, and as a result aren't nearly as profitable. Ultimately, it seems Universal felt that way and coupled with the fact that video game adaptation movies still have yet to break out of their seemingly eternal slump, there was that risk as well.
Even if the BioShock film does somehow find its way back on track, Gore Verbinski appears to have moved on. And frankly, we probably should too.
Source: [Reddit via GamesRadar]
