With top Director Gore Verbinski at the helm, some believed that the BioShock movie adaptation may have been the first to actually serve its source material well. He’d been responsible for creating the solid schlock remake The Ring and created a bonafide franchise in Pirates of the Caribbean. So where did it all go wrong?
Well according to Verbinski himself, funding was the issue – no-one wanted to spend the money required to do the world of Rapture justice.
I couldn’t really get past anybody that would spend the money that it would take to do it and keep an R rating,” explained Verbinski. “Alternately, I wasn’t really interested in pursuing a PG-13 version. Because the R rating is inherent. Little Sisters and injections and the whole thing. I just wanted to really, really make it a movie where, four days later, you’re still shivering and going, “Jesus Christ!”… It’s a movie that has to be really, really scary, but you also have to create a whole underwater world, so the pricetag is high. We just didn’t have any takers on an R-rated movie with that pricetag.
It’s such a shame – but maybe the studios were right? Would a Bioshock movie, based on what was inherently a niche gamers’ game, really have pushed through to the mainstream audience required of a big budget feature? It would have been risky. That said, we really wish someone had taken that risk.
Exclusive: Gore Verbinski Talks The Lone Ranger and More [Coming Soon]
Braaains
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:12 AMMaybe if he’d suggested having Andrew Ryan as the head of a family of international antiquities dealers who travel the globe meting out justice? Apparently it’s pretty easy to get that kind of bullshit off the ground in Hollywood.
mccawsome
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:41 AMSort of like the sopranos yeah
LOL
AmbroseIV
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:44 AMI lol’ed… but in reality, it is pretty sad.
That being said, while he sounds committed to all aspects of the original, it’s probably for the best it’s not made…
MrBS
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 12:08 PMYou win this thread!
5footassasin
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:10 PMHaha well said :D
WTHfor
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:43 PMLOL yep & the silent protagonist’s POV would be played by Mark Wahlberg’s hands.
Ross Moir
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:17 AMI think the Bioshock story would translate well into a movie plot.
While the difficulty of choosing between harvesting and saving would be difficult to convey, I think the illusion of free will lends itself as well to cinema as it does to games.
I understand games and movies are different genres with different requirements and challenges, but are the plots and stories so far removed that they’re incompatible?
Is the concept of a man attempting to rescue the forgotten children of a sunken city so alien?
NotoriousR
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:38 AMI’m glad it has stalled. The games themselves are perfect the way the are. The story, the scenario, the scenes, they were designed as a game, not as a movie, and as a result, they almost always are terrible.
Nick
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 10:42 AMWith all the crap that’s been coming out of Hollywood for the past several years, I would have thought Bioshock would get support easily. I mean, fudgin’ Angry Birds gets a movie?
Also, game’s rated MA15+ -> Make movie MA15+?
Marathon
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 11:07 AMHe’s talking US ratings. R = 17+ in the US.
Also prety sure other regions rated the Bioshock game equivilent to an Aus R rating. Only here did it slip into the MA15+ category.
James
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 12:42 PMDespite the different age requirements, the actual content of films that receive the MPAA R rating is closer to the Australian MA15+ classification than the R18+ rating.
They have a separate NC-17 rating that more closely mirrors our R18+ rating.
Ad
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 12:22 PMCredit to him though for pushing to keep it close to the game and not watering it down.
James Mac
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 12:33 PMand we’re sure it’s got nothing to do with his emo haircut?
http://www.memecore.com/storage/emo-dad-22891-1257438303-107.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1273807462537
just saying.
Alinos
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:06 PMor if atlas had stolen his girlfriend
Alex Rogan
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:26 PMNathan Fillion had been approached by Director Gore Verbinski. The actor I understand, accepted the position of head makeup artist.
Dire Wolf
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 1:57 PMI don’t see why they can’t make an MA version staring Leonardo Dicaprio as Jack.
Blackwater
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 3:02 PMI think the real question is; Who plays Andrew Ryan?
ThisGuy
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 6:33 PMTom Hanks?
Peter Richards
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 2:16 PMSooo, how much money are we talking?
I could check down the back of the couch.