Universal Puts 'Bioshock' on the Shelf

The long-awaited video game adaptation Bioshock will be even longer-awaited. Universal has put the project on ice for the time being because its $160 million budget was just too rich for the studio. I'm actually all for this, because with movies like Avatar and TRON putting the going rate for sci-fi over $200 million, finding a smarter, cheaper way to accomplish the same thing can keep the genre competitive while lowering the extreme amount of money a film would need to make in theaters and on DVD. Director Gore Verbinski told Variety, "We were asked by Universal to move the film outside the U.S. to take advantage of a tax credit. We are evaluating whether this is something we want to do. In the meantime, the film is in a holding pattern." London might be the preferred location over Los Angeles, and let's not lose sight of the fact that even though California passed a new tax incentive package for motion picture production, it only assists movies made for less than $75 million, so even though it won't kick in for two years, it wouldn't apply in this case, anyway. But Universal has been taking the scissors to plenty of projects lately, like Robin Hood, and the studio recently passed on Tintin because of its proposed $130 million price tag.

Comments

[MRPigg]

The good news is, Uwe Boll is willing to do Bioshock for $15 million, twenty tops.

[Get The Big Picture]

He sure is.

[orinn]

160mil, they did Serenity for 35mil, how the hell did Joss pull that off then?

[faulty logic]

i believe that a lot of the cost for serenity was taken out because they already a lot of the developmental process worked out from the whole tv series.. plus they lack any big name cast, who returned for the film out of a passion for the material