Where many have tried and failed, the man behind The Hunger Games will once again give it another shot. Francis Lawrence, director of the last four Hunger Games movies including the upcoming prequel, has been signed to direct an adaptation of the popular sci-fi horror game BioShock for Netflix.
Deadline broke the news, which also includes writer Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) to pen the screenplay. It’s the first major update on the film since earlier this year when Netflix announced it had acquired the rights to the Take Two Interactive franchise. Adapting the game is a task several filmmakers, most notably Gore Verbinksi, have attempted in the past to no avail.
Lawrence (who also directed Constantine and I Am Legend) is currently directing that aforementioned Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, so the plan is for Green to write the script and once the director is done with that movie, he’ll jump onto this one.
This seems to be an encouraging and almost exciting update on a video game adaptation most fans had probably thought would never happen. The underwater world of BioShock is so rich and beautiful, but also dark and disturbing, that you almost understood why a film hadn’t happened. What studio was going to pay for a movie that would cost so, so much but almost certainly have to alienate a good chunk of the audience in order to be depicted accurately? Well, enter Netflix, which you can imagine wants to starts a whole new franchise.
So are the men behind Green Lantern and Red Sparrow the ones to finally bring Big Daddy to the screen? (Yes, I purposely picked some of their lesser films for that joke to land.) In all seriousness though, both Green and Lawrence have shown an ability to take big, bold stories and find their cores. Green with Jungle Cruise. Lawrence with I Am Legend. There are others too. We think there’s some potential here, what about you?
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