Back in 2008, it was announced that Gore Verbinski would be directing a film adaptation of the video game BioShock, with John Logan writing the screenplay. Later, Verbinski decided to hand the helm over to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, but stayed involved as a producer. The movie never made it into production. After years in development hell, BioShock was scrapped by Universal. Now Netflix is working with Vertigo Entertainment and 2K on their own BioShock adaptation, which is set to be directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Michael Green. Lawrence has been developing the project with Green and producer Roy Lee for a couple of years now… and Deadline reports that it’s now moving ahead with a lower budget than previously expected.

During an appearance on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Roy Lee revealed that when Netflix film chief Scott Stuber left the company earlier this year and was replaced by Dan Lin, who plans to shift the streaming service “the streamer “away from producing an abundance of huge tentpole projects, in favor of more modestly budgeted efforts,” it had an impact on BioShock. Lee said, “The new regime has lowered the budgets. So we’re doing a much smaller version… It’s going to be a more personal point of view, as opposed to a grander, more epic project.“

Set across multiple dystopian and visionary landscapes gone wrong, the BioShock video game series blends sci-fi and horror to pose unique existential and societal questions reshaping how game stories are told—all amidst pulse-pounding action gameplay that rewards sharp shooting, clever planning and lethal improvisation. IMDb provides a synopsis of the first BioShock game: The year is 1960. While flying over the Atlantic ocean, average citizen Jack blacks out and awakens to discover that he is the sole survivor of a plane crash. Amidst the wreckage of his plane Jack spots and swims to a lighthouse and boards a Bathysphere that takes him deep within the ocean and into Rapture. Originally conceived as a utopia where a man would be entitled to all that he made without the interference of “parasites” by idealistic billionaire mogul Andrew Ryan. Rapture has since decayed and festered from the infectious effects of civil war and anarchy, brought about by the very ideals it citizens and it’s leader embrace. Aided by a sympathetic smuggler and a rogue geneticist, Jack salvages gene-altering chemicals, transforming himself into a superhuman, and uses his newfound powers and abilities as well as an arsenal of weapons to fend off the vicious hordes of psychotic mutants, security robots and armored super soldiers that resulted from Rapture’s unrest while given the choice to either rescue or lethally harvest the genetic material from Rapture’s only citizens with a chance: the 10-year-old “Little Sisters”. As Jack wanders through the condemning atmosphere of Rapture, he treads towards a secret that could shatter all that he has known forever.

Speaking with Collider, Lawrence previously said, “I think it’s one of the best games ever created. It’s also, I think, one of the most visually unique games ever created. The other thing, and one of the things that always appeals to me, is it is very thematic. There’s real ideas and philosophies underneath the game property, and it’s really, really, really thought out. A lot of games may have a great world of some kind, or they may have a great lead character, or they may tee you up for great set-pieces, but they don’t really have the ideas, they don’t have the kind of weight and the gravitas that BioShock does. The sort of combo of real ideas and philosophies mixed with the unbelievable aesthetic of it. Plus, one of the other things that I love, love, love is that sort of strange mashup of genre, the idea that you have what feels like a period piece, mixed with body horror, mixed with sci-fi. It’s one of those great mashups, and I think it can be really unique and really beautiful and really entertaining.“

What do you think of BioShock getting a lower budget and becoming a smaller movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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