Take-Two: "Bioshock"-Movie in Development
Take-Two: "Bioshock"-Movie in Development
Bioshock, influenced by the "System Shock"-series, probably last year's most highly awaited game and definitely its biggest hype, will come to the big screen. Variety announced that Universal Pictures are, together with Take-Two Interactive (the game's publisher), heading for what appears to be the biggest videogame-to-movie deal since in 2005 the "Halo" movie was announced, which was by now already cancelled. Take-Two's executive chairman Strauss Zelnick however promises that this won't happen to "Bioshock" as well. The director will be Gore Verbinski, well known for the "Pirates of the Carribean"-trilogy and for the very succesful remake of japanese horror flick "Ringu", but on the downside also responsible for the flop "Wicker Man" with Nicolas Cage. The screenplay will apparently be written by John Logan. His former screenplays include "Sweeney Todd", "The Last Samurai" and oscar-nominated "The Aviator".
Take-Two have by now also offically announced that this movie deal is by no chance just another rumour but really true and happening. 2K Games, developers of the game, are very happy about this project, as Christoph Hartmann, their president, points out:
BioShock fans appreciate the depth and complexity of the game, and our partnership with Gore Verbinski will introduce the world of Rapture to an even wider audience. In addition to his impressive body of work, Gore is an avid video gamer and true fan of BioShock. That was extremely important to us [...].
You can also find a first interview with Gore Verbinski online, in which he (among other points) states that of course you can't just adapt every single aspect of a computer game into a movie that only lasts about two hours, but he assures that fans won't be disappointed (well, of course he says that). Concerning issues like the controversial "Little Sisters" (one of the morality decisions in the game) and the generally rather mature nature of "Bioshock" he says:
I think we'll go right up to the edge with the Little Sisters. I don’t want to soften it to the point where the core audience feels betrayed. At the same time, the gameplay is completely different than it will be for an audience watching. The movie audience’s imagination is a lot more graphic if you let them imagine it. We'll have to be really clever with that. [...] We're prepared to make it an R-rated movie. I don’t intuitively see it as PG-13. The content and the graphic nature of the story itself is smarter than that. It's not for young kids. The utopian references and the way the characters and world are drawn in that delightfully inspired Jules Verne and Ayn Rand style places the film in a more elevated realm. It's the realm of a graphic novel.
It's not really clear yet when the film will hit the big screen, but taking into account that Take-Two are developing a sequel (or prequel) to "Bioshock" for 2009 makes us think that, from a marketing-oriented point of view, it would definitely be clever to release the game shortly before the movie comes out, or probably the other way round. So: There might be a good chance of the movie coming out late next year, if not early in 2010.
I appreciate that. It would give me some more time to finally play the game.
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Very interesting, +10 EXP.
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