Gore Verbinski Says Bioshock Movie Is Still Happening – Reports of its demise seem to have been premature

When Gore Verbinski decided not to make a fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, the main reason cited was that he was more interested in working on a movie based on the computer game Bioshock. However a few months later he seemed to back out on helming that, saying that because it was so expensive it would have to shoot outside the US, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to go and live in another country for a year and a half. The next we heard 28 Days Later’s Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was in talks to take Verbinski’s place on the film, with the Pirates director now just serving as producer.

Since then there’s been little news, with only quiet rumblings that it had fallen into development hell. While the initial suggestion last year was that it should have been filming by now, there’s been no forward movement, with many suggesting the uncertain nature of video game adaptations had made Bioshock virtually cost prohibitive (the studio nearly dropped in completely early last year over its reported $160 million pricetag).

However now Verbinski has been talking to IGN and given them an update, saying the project isn’t dead, but that “We’re working trying to make it. The problem with BioShock was: R-rated movie, underwater, horror. It’s a really expensive R-rated movie. So we’re trying to figure out a way working with [director] Juan Carlos [Fresnadillo] to get the budget down and still keep so it’s true to the core audience, you know? The thing is it has to be R, a hard R. We don’t want to dumb it down, we don’t want to make it PG-13. We want to keep it really edgy, and it’s a huge bill.”

The filmmaker adds, “I think BioShock’s a rare one because it’s actually a great story. Me? I don’t want to make movies based on videogames, but BioShock’s the one Oedipal, crazy kind of – it’s just got really good bones, and we’re really trying to figure out a way to make it work.” He’s right on that score, as while most videogame adaptations try to shoehorn themselves into a movie, Bioshock has it all already, with a beautifully realised world, plenty of backstory and the potential for a superb film. Let’s hope they get it to work, although Verbinski is also right that it’s gonna be expensive and that hard-R videogame movies don’t exactly have a great track record at the box office, which is bound to make the studio nervous.