While video game adaptations might be hot-ticket items today, back in the times of 2008 studios were a lot more trepidatious about them. Some of them could make money, but certainly not all, and almost all of them got bad reviews. Therefore, it wasn't really to the surprise of anyone that the Bioshock movie initially announced in 2008 ended up canned.
In a recent Reddit AMA promoting his upcoming movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski was asked about what exactly happened with the Bioshock movie he was meant to direct, and how far along he got with it.
"I loved this project when we were getting close to making it at Universal," Verbinski explained. "I was going to dive deeply into the Oedipal aspect and definitely keep it hard R with the Little Sisters, and the "choices" the protagonist makes... and the consequences."
"I had worked out a way with writer John Logan to have both endings and I was looking forward to bringing that to the big screen and really fucking with people's heads," Verbinski continued. "Had some great designs for the Big Daddies and the entire underwater demented art-deco aesthetic. Every year I hear something about the project, but I'm not sure any studio is quite willing to go where I was headed."
Sadly, the film wasn't to be, and it was dropped officially in around 2013. Now, though, Netflix is cooking up a new Bioshock adaptation, one that might not have Gore Verbinski attached, but could have a greater chance of getting made in the modern era of video game adaptations.