Universal Puts BioShock Movie On Hold On Budget Concerns
Universal and 2K Games’ big budget, big screen adaptation of BioShock may have gotten a little too big for its budget, as the film is now in a holding pattern as cost concessions are made.
The BioShock film, currently in pre-production, was announced last May by Universal and 2K, with Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski attached to helm the film and John Logan, responsible for Gladiator and The Aviator, planned to pen the script.
According to a Universal Pictures spokesperson, the film remains very much alive in extended pre-production “so the studio and production can take a look at possible alternate shooting locations, available tax credits, foreign exchange rates and other elements that might help us make the film at a responsible budget.”
“No plug has been pulled on BioShock,” reps told Kotaku. “Universal remains committed to making the project and Gore absolutely remains attached as director.”
According to additional reporting from Variety, Universal has cut back on pre-production headcount, noting that the film’s budget had skyrocketed to $US160 million, citing unnamed sources.
Variety writes that Universal is looking to have the production moved outside of the U.S. to reduce shooting costs.
“We are evaluating whether this is something we want to do,” Verbinski is quoted as saying. “In the meantime, the film is in a holding pattern.”
The BioShock film did not have an announced release date, but given the current status of the film’s production, we wouldn’t expect to see it any time soon.
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@Piata:
the waterworld budget skyrocketed because a hurricane hit during filming and destroyed the Atoll, the most expensive set in the movie. They had to rebuild the entire thing from basically scratch.
sluissa
@Gofthick:
Have you been asleep since 2000?
The nineties had very few, but wacky game movies.
This decade however, is the king of terrible adaptations.
Bloodrayne, Bloodrayne 2, Uwe Boll, Resident Evil(all of them), Doom, Max Payne, Street Fighter: Chun Li, Farcry, Uwe Boll, Postal.
Does someone care to fill in the ones I'm missing?
@mr_godot: Can you tell court where he touched you, little boy.
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: Agreed, brilliant! All you needed was the sunglasses!
I'm BIO-Shocked They put it on hold..!
Ah-hahaha... Ha...Ahh..
I hope they go through with the Bioshock movie and don't disappoint. If they follow the storyline of the game then it cannot go wrong.
@FaustianSlip: Meaney, rather. Boo for typos- but yay for him. He's in practically every other movie ever anyway, might as well be in this one, too. And really, the first time I heard Atlas, I could've sworn that's who was voicing him.
FaustianSlip
@UnderABox: If they could swing Colm Meany as Atlas, I would be over the moon. As it is, Depp and Pacino would be pretty damn awesome.
FaustianSlip
160 million?! Were they going to make an actual city under the sea?
boopadoo
They should film in Michigan... it's getting cheaper every day.
...Please?
lostinthe4th
@kinganad: Looks like someone spliced City of Lost children and Dark City and A.I.
City of Lost Children had the right look very gritty dirty textured environment then the guy did I think Alien 4 .
Not to be a hater, but video game movies always suck, and they sour the general public on the IPs they poorly represent. Gamers revere titles like Mortal Kombat, Doom, Street Figther II and Hitman, but ask a movie buff and all of the above are garbage.
@+ Watch video
kinganad
@blehh: COMMENT OF THE WEEK!
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@Narsil: You guys with your pun jokes. Shows me just how washed-up you all really are...
RuBBa_cHiKiN
@Space_Cakes: Just record a play-through of the game and put that out as the movie. Let the masses be enraptured.
bewarethefoopa
Well, what does universal expect? It's about a city UNDER THE FREAKING SEA.
Robbotron
@blehh: Hey, isn't that a parade over there? Go piss on it!
@RaptureScientist: I pretend all video game movies don't exist. Because they shouldn't.
@Melaisis: Now THAT I can get behind! Alfonso would be a great choice!
Save Guillermo for another monster-type of film.
Raziel66
Would you kindly finance and finish this movie for the fans?
Benji Moore
@undefined: BIOSHOCK HAS WATER IN IT.
blehh
@b-radicate: Plus, the film would just look like the game and..... hheeeyyyy! :D
@Etheris: jeez... the puns are really flooding in now... still, with the PotC director still on board it looks like it's got the potential to make a splash in the box office.
*groan*
@Zero_: lol yea thats true. but i guess the world will never know who would have done a better job ;)
kinganad
@Toasticus: Woops, I was unaware of afloat being used, my memory of your comment must have been submerged in my sub-conscious.
@Toasticus: At least the project is staying afloat.
wow... i'm sorta excited for this movie now... big budget, good director, good script writer... that's unusual for these kinds of games to movie adaptions
@UnderABox: Hm, that would explain the $160 million budget. Depp got $70 million for the last pirates movie.
@Raziel66:
Absolutely.
The fantasy elements in PL weren't that good anyway, but the Tarantino-esque gory torture scenes and drama was the best parts.
Personally I'd love to see Alfonso Cuarón direct. Children of Men has shown that he can do gritty, realist dystopian dramas like no other.
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky:
That joke was certainly a Big Daddy.
<.<
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: Surely they'll find some way to keep the project afloat, even if they have to splice in some stock footage. It sucks seeing the corporate sugar daddies drill holes in the budget, though!
@Veritas7Ax: Sadly, you're probably right, but I kind of hope they go a more traditional route and use conventional effects for the majority of the film.
The key to this movie being good will be to capture the grit and grime that only real sets and effects can create. Too much CGI would remove viewers from the experience of "being there," an element more key to BioShock's story than most games/tales.
For $160 millions, I guess J. Cameron would have been able to shoot BioShock 1 & 2 back to back in the pit of a derelict power plant somewhere in Ukraine.
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky:
Why are all puns on Kotaku met with such ... Rapturous ... applause?
woons
@kinganad:
Yeah, both are great directors - I just think del Toro would do a much, much better job because he's actually played BioShock and loves it, and that always helps.
Zero_
Well there goes the hopes of that film being any good then
John Logan penned Nemesis. That is all.
armani
CGI ruins most movies. Real sets and rubber suits and stuff with proper lighting makes a much better movie then CGI. Mostly it starts looking too clean, too "uberreal", especially when the movie revolves around computer generated characters :|
Poul Wrist
Um Yay?! While I do admit I want to see a big screen version of Bioshock (as its story was badass) I'm also wary of it being sucky. Which terrifies me to no end as to how much suckage can happen...
Oh and $160 mil?? Pfft! Give it to Uwe Boll and have him make it with $100 dollars,some loose change! They can shoot the entire thing at the nearest McDonalds! Hurry!
excaliburps
@stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut: well yea, i can see what you mean. but remember that batman and batman returns had a cool fusion of art Deco and the victorian artstyles. But for the most part, i think Burtons story telling techniques could mesh well with Bioshock's.
kinganad
@Jmontilla2786: Really? Because the whole time i was watching Hellboy II I felt like I had seen all that crap in Pan's Labyrinth. The guy has one style that he uses repeatedly and it gets old.
Raziel66
@RaptureScientist: Such great source material, yet there's so much potential for this movie to fail. Which I'm almost certain it will :(
lolgreg
@Veritas7Ax: Not necessarily. Mirrormask, a gorgeous film even by exceptional standards, was created with a $4 million budget. No, I didn't forget any zeros.
@Jmontilla2786: Poor Terry. He makes such great films, too. Honestly, if Terry Gilliam were to do the movie, it would be so fucking insanely bad ass. That guy is an amazing director that can pull out some great visual storytelling.
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@MDX: Gladiator was a good movie, though not at all for it's writing.
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@kinganad: I don't know. Burton likes gothic Victorian artstyles. Rapture is Art Deco. Very different. Not to say Burton couldn't fo it, but I have a feeling he'd try to add in Victorian touches, like he does in all his movies.
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom: No gods or kings, only man!
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@FatalChaos: One might say that you're a little wet behind the ears at the pun game, eh?
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@MrBionic: They get paid okay, but nothing staggering or anything. The main cost with CG is the equipment. Render farms are not cheap to rent out, not are FX houses cheap to equip.
stupid_mcgee: would prefer an astronaut
@Jmontilla2786: i think Burton is extremely original, which is only furthered by the fact that he never does sequels(only one that comes to mind is Batman Returns). But yea, i felt that rapture and burtons mind could go perfect together.
kinganad
They could just not make it period. That would work better.
why dont they do green screen and do it like watchmen...
@GOLD5: then one of three things happen:
1) there's controversy and no one wants to screen the film ( Tideland)
2) God will put his wrath the film and make it impossible (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote even though he's trying again)
3) The main actor ( the new one he did with Heath Ledger right before he died..the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus)
@randomrawr: I suspect that the artists themselves don't get paid all that well.
@SG_Mahonay:
make a good movie based off a game**
SG_Mahonay
@Raziel66: no...they really dont. Having fantasy characters in his films =/= same.
And u can say the same with Gore...all he's done in the last six years is water stories.
Honestly, any game to movie adaptation put on hold is a good idea. Having bad games turned into cheesy movies is bad enough, let alone a brilliant game being turned into what has become a gimmick genre in the movie industry.
I really think if Peter Jackson would of convinced people to give him the funding he needed to make the Halo movie that could of been the one to show that you can make a good game based off a game, if you treat it seriously, and not like a 2nd rate straight to DVD release.
SG_Mahonay
I think they must have looked at their "crappy movie quota" and seen this would have put them over.
@excel_excel: You already said to kill it... too late to change your mind!
Raziel66
@Zero_: Nah, all of his stuff looks the same. I'll stick with Gore.
Raziel66
@Trey: "Déjà -fucking-vu."
B33
@Kommissar Kayce: I'm touched, kind sir.
@mr_godot:
I was wondering when you'd finally show up, Mr Godot. It feels like I've been waiting forever for you to get here.
Verbinski better stay on, he's the only person I can imagine doing this film even remote justice. Pirates wasn't the best film series ever, but it did nail using water and lighting to gritty effect which is exactly what Bioshock needs. The writer they've got has hits but they never mention his misses (and I won't here, look him up you lazy bums). That budget makes me feel good too, because that means they aren't going to cheap out and just use CG for everything, that they need elaborate set work to utilize real water. CG is garbage these days, it looks worse than it did 10 years ago in B-movies. And honestly, using real water would end up being cheaper in the long run. It would take 2 years of post production to make it all look even remotely correct. Real>CG any day.
jargy1
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: It appears you've made quite a splash. This is becoming practically flooded with puns.
@OW-Holmes, the housekeeper.:
I dunno. These puns get me all kinds of wet.
@Zero_: call me crazy, but i thought that burton could probably do this justice.
kinganad
@Kuwabara Kazuo: I just got Bioshock brand new for PS3 at Blockbuster for $20. Also, Gamestop is having a B2G1 this weekend, maybe you can pick it up there.
@Kuwabara Kazuo: Same here. All of the Bioshock 2 hype is starting to get me interest in the origional. I will give it a go sometime.
@Ben9: I think they purchase them to stop other film companies getting the rights and making a profit off of it. Eventually, they'll turn these purchases into movies nut probably only when they can forecast an extremal decent turnover in terms of profit from the movie and/or the company has a whole (so that if it bombs, at least they still can be resting on a nice lofty profit margin.)
@Veritas7Ax: I always preferred the old "rubber suit" method of making movies, and the analogue animation process. CGI makes me think of my other passion.
For example, in the old Star Wars movies, I was thinking "how will Luke get out of this one?", in the new ones, I mainly thought about how many proton torpedos I had left.
Power_Wrist
@NaruThai: Agreed.
@Despacio: Not to say that Mummy 3 was original but a video game adaptation isn't original in my books. Yes it would be awesome but come on now.
John Logan is a two time Academy Award nominated screenwriter. Gore Verbinski is the special effects, big budget director of the POTC series. If any game movie ever had so much promise, it would be this one. As long as its not watered down for children and aimed at adults, it could be huge.
I wish people wouldn't refer to him as the PotC director - at least when it comes to Bioshock. I'm not looking for his PotC credentials; I think his "Ring" credentials will have the desired effect
Next time Verbinski , make sure to say "would you kindly".
I love that picture! Anyone know where it's from, so I can get a larger version?
Everard
I bet the reason the budget went up so much is because they decided to film on-location.
SureWhyNot
At least Bioshock has potential to translate into film. It has, you know, a beginning middle and end.
ctorrans
Aaahhh Mr Bioshock.
Take a seat and welcome to Development Hell.....
KhaiJB
@OW-Holmes, the housekeeper.: hahah, oh god this shit is great
@abort_user: Are you two from the future? Have you even seen the movie?
@Gofthick: $30 million was for Keanu Reeves and $10 million was for a vocal coach to give him an Irish accent.
Gort23
The movie shouldn't cost $160 million ... there are methods for getting the price down. I think Universal is smart for doing this, personally.
Honestly, I hope it stays in limbo.
Bioshock was one of the games that proves the medium can stand on its own, it doesn't need to stand on the shoulders of movies or TV, a game doesn't need to have a movie made out of it to be considered successful.
The general attitude seems to be that if a game is good enough, it gets a movie made out of it. My contention is that if a game is good enough, it doesn't need a movie, it can stand by itself as an effective piece of art.
QualityJeverage
Well reigning in costs a little is of course warranted, though I hope Universal isn't thinking they can do a quick and dirty cash in like so many game to film franchises.
I mean, the reason why most game films we see are so bad is movie execs typically seem them as a means of cashing in on a game franchises popularity. They either low budget them or send the script through a committee of know nothings and what we useually get as a result is a crappy film.
Here's hoping Bioshock escapes that fate.
WolvenOne
@the7k: Keep on fishing then.
Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: I'm floundering to come up with a decent pun...
@Derek Rumpler: So first Halo, then God of War, now Bioshock? Universal, what's the point in purchasing the filming rights to all these gaming franchises if you don't even having faith in their budgets?
Ben9
@LordThayer: Im really not a fan of all this dry humor.
OW-Holmes, the housekeeper.
@Kuwabara Kazuo: I literally envy you. There are few games that feel like an EXPERIENCE and Bioshock was one of them. Enjoy it mayne.
Skinney is now KamikazeSim
They should get Terry Gilliam to direct it. That would really help with these types of problems.. :-)
@excel_excel:
I loved Gladiator!
Hopefully... I'll love this too... If not.......... oh well XD
@LordThayer:
I applaud both of thee!
@UnderABox: I think Depp would make an awesome Sander Cohen. That would be flippin' awesome.
I read somewhere that Al Pacino was in talks to play Ryan. Also it was hinted that verbanski was trying to get Depp as Sander Cohen. Tell me that wouldnt be badass
@Gofthick: The dollar isn't what it used to be. That's probably part of the reason.
MadMinstrel
Only in this crazy world does Universal greenlight retread crap like The Mummy 3 and put something original on hold like Bioshock. Gore Verbinski made Disney a lot of money with the hugely budgeted Pirates series, why no trust for this guy?
Although, Bioshock is a game that takes place inside all the time, so couldn't they shoot this anywhere on soundstages?
Despacio
@LordThayer: After that I got nothing, very nice.
@excel_excel: He wrote gladiator? Superjoygasm.
MDX
@Zero_: Yeah! That'd probably be epic! Pan's Labyrinth was awesome.....ly incoherent.
Kuwabara Kazuo
@sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom: for now?
abort_user
John Logan, responsible for Gladiator and The Aviator, planned to pen the script.
we need him for SotC movie.
kilikafinal
@Zero_: Joygasm
MDX
@LordThayer: HAHAHA, fucking hell brilliant!
@LordThayer: Brilliant!
Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky
@undefined: What a shock; a watered down joke.
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: WHERE IS THIS MANS STAR?
John Logan, responsible for Gladiator and The Aviator, planned to pen the script.
HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE!
A good script writer!
This movie may have a chance yet!
GOOD! I want the production value to be through the fucking roof! That game deserves it.
NoobSmasher
@MrBionic:
So they shouldn't get paid well for being talented artists that have spent their whole lives investing in art, both in time and money?
Would ya kindly kill that movie off?
C'mon someone had to say it!
@Veritas7Ax:
I say its interesting that Jonn Logan is writing the script. We might actually have a good story on our hands.
Put on hold?
Budget too big?
...I thought you were talking about the Halo movie.
srsly, the studios don't want a 'proper' videogame movie. They want a Resident Evil Extinction clone that they can make for $40 million and then watch it take in $140 million on it's name from teen's.
Pitching your 'videogame movie' with a budget of $140 million and a clever plot is a sure fire way to see your project get dumped.
The movie industry sucks :(
government bailout FTW!!!!!
@Kuwabara Kazuo: There are far worse and few better modern games to spend one's time on.
I don't care. I'm just going to pretend this movie doesn't exist.
RaptureScientist
@MrBionic: Don't tell them that! ssssshhhhhhhhh!
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: You made me do my retarded Kat Dennings laugh, so for that you get a thumbs up.
DeadHex - Now on XBL/PSN
How awesome would it have been for Guillermo del Toro to direct this.
Zero_
Whilst a big budget is far from equating to a good movie, it's nice to see our past time given some serious investment, as opposed to the god awful film adaptations of the 90s.
Still, $160 million? That's fucking bananas!
Umm... thank God?
sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom
Hah, right. "Very much alive in extended pre-production." Pretty sure those exact words were used for the Halo movie too.
Oh well, bound to happen when there hasn't been an outrageously successful video game movie.
@Veritas7Ax: CGI people are WAY overpaid.
Stoopid Monkeys.
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: I am both applauding, and smacking my forehead.
Which, err...
means that I'm applauding by smacking my forehead.
Sounds to be going the road of the Halo movie.
Trey
I remember watching something about Waterworld way back when and how it's budget sky rocketed due the amount of scenes in or on water. I'm sure something similar is happening here.
But a $160 million? Yeesh. At least they have a good script writer.
Piata
@Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky: The don't want to sink to much money in to it.
Never played Bioshock. Gonna give it a go soon.
Kuwabara Kazuo
I guess you can say that the film sunk.
YEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH
Gorilla Snow is Maximum Risky
When your film is like 80% CG effects, you'd best roll out the dough. PotC director at the helm? Interesting.
@cupajoe38: This is the test case. What happens if you throw a huge budget at a video game franchise in the late 2000's. Its honestly been awhile since resident evil and tomb raider, and the landscape may have changed, for better or worse.
Kounji
@Trey: Except that Bioshock was actually written well enough to be made into a movie...