It's been over 10 years since Universal snapped up the rights to make a BioShock movie and now fans finally have some idea what that movie would have looked like. BioShock was a massively popular and critically acclaimed video game created by 2K Games back in 2007, which has spawned two sequels, BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite, with BioShock 4 now on the way. The first game follows the story of Jack, a young man who finds himself in the decaying underwater city of Rapture after a plane crash. He is quickly swept up in a civil war between the city's leader, Andrew Ryan, and the mysterious revolutionary, Atlas. Jack's journey takes him through a horrifying world of DNA splicing and vicious monstrosities as he discovers secrets about Rapture, Atlas and Ryan's war, and his own history.
Universal's BioShock movie was originally in the hands of Gore Verbinski, who directed The Ring and the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and John Logan, the creator of Penny Dreadful and Oscar-nominated writer of Gladiator and The Aviator. After languishing in development hell for years, the BioShock movie was eventually canceled after Universal was unable to justify the enormous budget, which was reportedly north of $160 million, given the film's hard R-rating and the less-than-inspiring history of video game adaptations at the box office.
After spending years in search of it, Birth.Movies.Death.'s Scott Wampler received the leaked script and it sounds like a doozy. The plot remains remarkably faithful to the source material, following Jack's travels through the horrifying art-deco city as he faces off against the nightmarish splicers, Big Daddies, and Little Sisters. It even keeps the game's iconic plot twist just as players remember it other than reportedly fleshing out the context a little bit more.
Some of the more interesting choices made concern Jack, the plotting, and the brutal tone. Wampler notes that despite some attempts to expand on the game's blank-slate protagonist, "There's not a tremendous amount of personality to Jack, but he's a fine stand-in for the role previously filled by you, the player, sitting on your couch." That doesn't exactly sound engrossing, but would still be serviceable since Jack's character is far from the draw of the story. That draw, the exploration of the unique setting, appears unchanged. Like the game before it, Jack never settles in one place for long and instead roams from one unbelievable location to the next. The most shocking choice of the script seems to be just how damn brutal it is. It features the horrifying slaughter of a Little Sister, wanton mutilation such as Jack having his ear ripped off, and that brutality all comes crashing down as Logan has elected to finish his script with the game's bad ending rather than the good one held in canon by the controversial but beloved BioShock Infinite.
As Wampler points out, it's hard to say just who this movie is for. As cool and intense as it sounds, it's not clear whether or not casual audience members would show up for a big-budget video game movie with this level of gore and brutality, even one as popular and lauded as BioShock. It's a shame that the reputation of video game movies appears to have done some damage here as recent years have shown that they are by no means doomed to fail. The success of Sonic the Hedgehog and Netflix's Castlevania series is proof that that success can be found in the hands of creators who care about the material and the audience it's intended for. Hopefully, this leak will create a groundswell of support like Deadpool's leaks before it and show that the audience for this movie exists after all. Should that be the case, Universal, would you kindly make a BioShock movie happen?
Source: Birth.Movies.Death.
