Eddie Redmayne and Jamie Dornan both auditioned for a role in a movie based on the video game BioShock before the project was shut down. Both actors have since found success in different avenues. Dornan is well known for nabbing the lead role in the 50 Shades of Grey franchise, while Redmayne starred in a series of Oscar-nominated films as well as the Harry Potter prequel series Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
The BioShock video game franchise has been around since 2007 when the first main game was released. Its most recent installment is BioShock: Infinite, and BioShock 4 is expected to arrive within the next "several" years, according to developers. Players take on a first-person shooter perspective as they navigate a disturbingly beautiful retrofuturistic backdrop. The game involves themes of moral relativism and dystopia, i.e. perfect material to adapt into a post-apocalyptic action blockbuster. Universal Studios took an interest immediately after the first game came out and tapped Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) to bring the game to the silver screen. The production ran into a number of bumps in the road, primarily budgetary concerns, that would lead to its cancellation in 2013.
Apparently, producers made it at least as far as the casting stage before BioShock unraveled, and Redmayne and Dornan both got in the room. In a recent Variety interview, the two actors reminisce about their starving artist days when they were roommates trying to make it in Hollywood. Along with a treasure trove of silly anecdotes from their salad days, living together gave each actor firsthand knowledge of the others' career beginnings. Redmayne reveals that he and Dornan were both up for the same role in BioShock:
You remember BioShock? We were furious with each other as we were going through it, and competing for the same role.
The Danish Girl star references texting Andrew Garfield about the audition, but it's not entirely clear whether the Spider-Man actor also went out for the role. Redmayne jokes that auditions were few and far between at the time and says he also auditioned for 10,000 B.C. In 2013, BioShock's developer Ken Levine announced that he'd accepted an offer to terminate his deal with Universal after the studio drastically reduced the budget for the movie. Fortunately for Redmayne, his career was taking off by then after roles in My Week With Marilyn and Les Misérables in 2011 and 2012. Dornan got his break just a few years later when Fifty Shades of Grey came out in 2015.
The mystery of the BioShock movie that never came to be can ultimately be solved by taking a look at the series of mundane production issues that built up over time. Still, knowing that either Dornan or Redmayne could potentially have starred in a big-budget, R-rated movie adaptation of the popular video game conjures visions of an alternate universe, perhaps not unlike the dystopian world of BioShock itself. In any case, it's fun to hear that the actors crossed paths in so many ways before each making it big on their own.
Source: Variety