It took some doing, but Gore Verbinski of Pirates of the Caribbean fame is going to get the chance to turn the critically-acclaimed video game Bioshock into a feature film. The script is currently being written by John Logan, who also penned the Academy Award winners The Aviator and Gladiator.
The "doing" is that Universal has to give the publisher, Take-Two Interative, a multi-million dollar advance in order to give them incentive to get it made, rather than languishing in development hell like the Halo movie. Universal also had to wait until Bioshock racked up all the industry awards and big-time holiday sales before they'd make a deal.
"Bioshock" takes place in an underwater city based on the free market principles of Ayn Rand, but things have gone disastrously wrong. Players control a pilot who crash-lands at a secret entrance to the city, called Rapture, and is drawn into a power struggle during which he discovers that his will is not as free as he'd thought.
"I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that's cleverly unveiled to players is just brimming with cinematic potential," said Verbinski. "Of all the games I've played, this is one that I felt has a really strong narrative."
Verbinski noted that Rapture's art deco design and visually arresting characters, such as the mechanical Big Daddys who protect genetically mutated girls called Little Sisters, particularly inspired him to see the game as a film.
It sounds as though Take-Two is serious about translating their game into a film and avoiding falling into a Uwe Boll-shaped hellhole littered with awful video game movies. This is likely the reason they keep turning down deals to turn Grand Theft Auto into a movie, too.
"One of the things we decided early on is that we didn't want to go through a producer," [Take Two's Strauss Zelnick] commented. "It's terribly important to us to have a meaningful influence on how this project is produced. We didn't want any insulation between us."
