Looks Like 'BioShock' Is Still Sort Of Moving Forward

Funny how all these things pop up at once, isn't it? We talked about Red Dead Redemption possibly getting a movie last Friday, I think, and then there was a hint dropped that Half-Life might be a film property some day, too. In that discussion, we said that BioShock was still among those video game adaptations Hollywood has decided we need to see, but until the budget comes down, that will never happen. So this morning, I see on Kokatu that Ken Levine, the designer of the BioShock game, had given a radio interview in which he says the movie is still progressing over at Universal. Here's the background: Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) was going to direct but the budget he pitched was astronomical. Rather than make the movie himself, Verbinski is just producing now and directing other stuff. He has handed the filmmaking duties to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later). But that was a while ago and there hasn't been much headway made since. "I will say that it is still an active thing," Levine said. "And it is something we are actively talking about and actively working on." However, Levine cautions, "The movie business is complicated - I can't tell you whether it's going to happen for sure or it's not going to happen for sure. But it's something we are actively discussing, quite actively, and actively working on." Wow, is this a government project? "It's moving forward, but I can't say if it's going to happen or not. But if it does or doesn't happen, it will be doing so actively." Yeah, I think, eventually, da U will get around to this. Hard to blame a studio with such a bad recent track record of hit-building for not sinking $250 - $300 million into a video game movie when they're tested products that fail more than they succeed. If there's a way to get the budget down to about $140 million or so, it's not nearly as big a risk, except, of course, the risk that you're not presenting a good enough version of the world the game creates.