Ken Levine Kills Bioshock Movie

bioshock

Over the past few years, the development of a Bioshock movie has been talked over repeatedly. Many directors have tried to step up to the task of creating the film, but upon planning, realize that the movie would cost too much money to produce. Ken Levine, creative director and front man for Irrational Games, has also been trying to get a Bioshock movie in production, but recently has decided, like many others, that it simply is not possible.

Levine started planning the Bioshock film with director Gore Verbinski with an estimated budget of a whopping $200 million. Levine commented on the production of the film last night at a BAFTA even in London last night, saying, “There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it. And what happened was – this is my theory – it’s a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a ‘hard-rated’ horror film – an R rated film with a lot of blood. Then The Watchmen came out – and I really liked The Watchmen – but it didn’t do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R rated $200 million film.

So they said, ‘Gore, what about it if it was an $80 million film?’ and enough time had gone by where Gore didn’t want to make an $80 million dollar film. And so they brought another director in and I didn’t really see the match there – Take Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, ‘if you want to kill it Ken, kill it’. And I killed it.

Which was weird, having been a screenwriter going around begging to re-write any script to being in a position where you’re killing a movie that you worked so much on. It was saying, “You know what? I don’t need to compromise’. I had the [Bioshock] world, and I didn’t want to see it done in a way I didn’t think was right.”

As there have been many game-to-film movies that have not been outstanding and straying from the premise of the game itself, it might be in the gaming community’s best interest to give up on the hope of a Bioshock movie and just cherish the game, which stands strong on its own. It is reassuring, though, to see a company not lower their standards and forfeit aspects of the game to make it able to be turned into a movie and make a profit.

While we don’t have a Bioshock movie to look forward to, the long-awaited Bioshock Infinite is finally nearing its March 26th release.

 

 

 

 

Written by Guest Contributor: ManaCookies

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