Netflix’s BioShock movie is still in development, and its director says the hardest part is the thing that makes the game special: you are the lead character. Francis Lawrence told IGN that he’s “getting close” to cracking it, while also revealing how the project reached him after more than a decade of false starts.
Lawrence made the comments in an interview for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which IGN says reaches theatres next month. Asked what he’d like to adapt next, he named BioShock and called it a “tricky adaptation”. He described the world as amazing, but noted that a story built around the player as its protagonist is a tough one to translate for the screen.
His own history with the project goes back further than his current role suggests. Lawrence says BioShock has been in his orbit since around 2009, when Gore Verbinski was set to make it at Universal. In Lawrence’s recollection, that version was a $200 million, R-rated film with a lead who wasn’t a star, and Universal wasn’t interested. Verbinski then offered the project to Lawrence, who was already committed elsewhere and had to pass.
The project later moved to Guillermo del Toro, and that attempt also collapsed. Lawrence says del Toro didn’t “see eye to eye” with, as he remembers it, the game’s creator, and the film then “came my direction”. IGN notes that’s a mild description. Del Toro told the outlet earlier this year that he never wants to adapt a video game again, calling a call with the BioShock team “one of the most disastrous calls I’ve ever had”.
Lawrence says that experience has shaped how he’s handling the relationship with the game’s creator. According to him, the creator had to sign off on him personally and wanted to be sure he was “in love with the spirit of the game”. Lawrence says he understands why: the creator wanted to protect certain elements, ideas and themes, “as one should”. Lawrence is also known for most of the Hunger Games films and, more recently, The Long Walk, and he compares BioShock’s long wait to the two decades it took him to land that Stephen King adaptation.
The film’s timing remains uncertain, because Lawrence has other commitments. He’s also attached to a Red Rising movie at Paramount. The Playlist reports that he told The Direct BioShock is still being worked on, while pointing to leadership changes at Netflix as another complication. Tom’s Guide reported earlier that producer Roy Lee said at San Diego Comic-Con the film was being reworked to be “more personal” on a scaled-down budget.
Who is directing the BioShock movie?
Francis Lawrence is attached to direct the Netflix adaptation, having taken it over after Gore Verbinski’s Universal version and Guillermo del Toro’s talks fell through.
Is there a release date for the BioShock movie?
No. Lawrence describes the project as in development and “getting close”, but none of the coverage we’ve read gives a release date, cast or start of production.
Why is BioShock hard to adapt?
Lawrence says the game casts you as the lead, so the film has to create a character for a story built around the player. He also says the world’s scale and tone complicate things, and that the game’s creator wants key themes protected.
