Remember that Bioshock movie that almost happened? To be honest, there have probably been several attempts. But one notable instance involved director Gore Verbinski in the early 2010s, and it turns out the studio killed the project almost right out of the gate.
In a recent interview with Collider, Verbinski spoke about his ambitious attempt to turn the undersea thriller into a gritty, R-rated film. According to him, the project was dead in the water (no pun intended) as soon as he brought it up in his very first meeting with Universal regarding the idea. It's already difficult enough to get clearance to adapt a video game for the big screen, especially given the general quality of such things in the past. But when Verbinski came right out swinging, the studio could barely respond with more than stunned silence.
"My first meeting at Universal on Bioshock was sitting in a room and saying, 'Hey guys, this is a $200 million R-rated movie.' And it was silent." Verbinski went on to detail how even his agent looked at him incredulously after such a blunt declaration. To just come out and say a film will not only be expensive, but will also earn a rating that will automatically shrink its potential audience, doesn't tend to inspire confidence in the people paying for the idea. Maybe they would have preferred a video game TV show?
Verbinski wanted to be completely open about the kind of movie he intended to make, and fans of the Bioshock games likely won't be entirely surprised to hear it was going to earn that dreaded R-rating. The brutally honest director also credits the quick rejection to the, at the time, recent release of Zack Snyder's Watchmen, which earned some decent praise but didn't translate it very well to box office numbers. Universal simply wasn't willing to take another risk, especially on a video game movie. Naturally, this was before the majority of the highest-grossing video game movies had even come out, so they had little reason to assume it would work.
Given Bioshock's influential nature in the video game world, it makes sense that Verbinski would want to go all out in adapting it to the silver screen. At the time it was pitched, it's difficult to imagine any film touted as a "$200 million R-rated movie" getting the green light without some really clever PR spinning, so fans shouldn't take its rejection as a sign that they'll never see the beloved franchise outside of the interactive world. In fact, given recent trends, it may work even better as an adaptation into an HBO show.
Still, it can be sobering to remember that such things can hold back potentially incredible films from being made. Especially now in a world where PG-13 superhero movies dominate the market, it's not difficult to see why many studios prefer not to take risks. But hopefully the underwater city of Rapture will get its chance to shine again someday soon.
Source: Collider