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Concept art from the cancelled BioShock movie

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Edit: added more old concept arts for the movie.

In 2008, Universal bought the rights to produce a big budget adaptation of the famous video game series Bioshock . We are talking about 160 million, even 200 million dollars.
Gore Verbinski (the Pirate of the Caribbean trilogy) was chosen to direct.
In writing, we also found a safe bet: John Logan, author of The Last Samurai, and Scorsese's Aviator, for which he had been nominated for the Oscars.
The script was written in full before the project fell through, and so far no one had heard of it again. At least until a movie editor, Scott Wampler, stumbled upon the script that fell in his own words "from the truck in front of his house".
So he was able to share the script:

unknown.png
unknown.png


Bioshock would have started exactly like the game. We are in 1960, a plane crashes, Jack finds a lighthouse, and discovers Rapture, an underwater city where something very violent happened.
Andrew Ryan's opening monologue is even preserved. Few video game adaptations can boast of being so faithful. Directly, a mutant attacks the bathysphere. The atmosphere is calm. In terms of sets, everything is there too: the piles of corpses, the strange machines and the slugs in the toilets.

jerx-marantz-116.jpg
jerx-marantz-110.jpg
jerx-marantz-108.jpg


The young man quickly got to know Atlas through the radio. Of course, the character of Jack runs much deeper.
Bioshock was an FPS and here we follow him from a distance imposed by the staging. The young man is driven by his desire for freedom.
He spends his time wondering how the monsters and other inhabitants of Rapture react to his presence, as if it had all been done for him.
Nonetheless, he follows Atlas's directions, asking him to go see Ryans, ruler of the Sunken City.

unknown.png


Jack meets a lot of bosses and characters from the game, such as Atlas, of course, or even Sander Cohen, the striking artist in the middle of one of the most memorable fights of the adventure.
Moreover, the "work" of the psychopath in question should have resembled that of the game, showing the level of violence predicted by John Logan and Gore Verbinski.
This is the moment when Jack injects himself with ADAM for the first time, which allows him to violently erupt a slew of mutants.

jerx-marantz-109.jpg
jerx-marantz-117.jpg
jerx-marantz-115.jpg


Always watched by Andrew Ryans, he then continues on his way, meeting the famous little sisters and other Big Daddy, as well as a mysterious groom named Rudy.
At the end of his trip, he finally meets the mayor. The players know what follows and the twist for which Bioshock is famous is very present.

PowerStation13_view8.jpg
PowerStation05b.jpg


The rival of Atlas is thus smashed with great blows of "I beg you", and Jack manages to get rid of the control exerted on him, to go to face his real enemy.
The question that remains is: what ending was selected by the screenwriter? As strange as it may seem, it is indeed the wrong ending that was chosen, an end that even the developers of the 2nd opus decided to invalidate to build their story.

unknown.png
unknown.png


Throughout his description, Scott Wampler emphasizes the similarities to the games. Jack is always on the move there, something admitted in FPS, much less in blockbusters where the action sometimes needs to arise.
Better, the scenario would be of a memorable darkness and violence. The descriptions of monsters do not spare them, Big Daddy in mind. It also describes a very graphic murder of a little sister, and even a sequence where the hero has his ear torn off.

Rapture's muffled violence and creepy vibe are therefore probably the two main reasons for dropping a project that ultimately looked more like an R-rated horror film than an adventure blockbuster.

 
Last edited:

OnionSnake

Banned
Interesting, those designs do not scream Bioshock Splicer to me at all but maybe it would have worked in motion...
 
I guess they want something that's not too hard for the makeup artist to make and also not too bad for the screen. overall it seems like it could be fine and it's a shame this didn't make it into production. wonder what happened that made this one fell through.
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
I guess they want something that's not too hard for the makeup artist to make and also not too bad for the screen. overall it seems like it could be fine and it's a shame this didn't make it into production. wonder what happened that made this one fell through.

It's in the OP, they needed 160M minimum for a R rated movie coupled with the creepy vibe. The Studio didn't feel it.
 

Areiz

Banned
I've really loved the Bioshock franchise. But for now, I only wish to have a brand new game at least
 
It's in the OP, they needed 160M minimum for a R rated movie coupled with the creepy vibe. The Studio didn't feel it.

well, with the current climate, they might be able to get that working again. hopefully they can look into it more. it's not like you'll need a lot of on location shoots for this one so it's less an issue for them to start with.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Edit: added more old concept arts for the movie.

In 2008, Universal bought the rights to produce a big budget adaptation of the famous video game series Bioshock . We are talking about 160 million, even 200 million dollars.
Gore Verbinski (the Pirate of the Caribbean trilogy) was chosen to direct.
In writing, we also found a safe bet: John Logan, author of The Last Samurai, and Scorsese's Aviator, for which he had been nominated for the Oscars.
The script was written in full before the project fell through, and so far no one had heard of it again. At least until a movie editor, Scott Wampler, stumbled upon the script that fell in his own words "from the truck in front of his house".
So he was able to share the script:

unknown.png
unknown.png


Bioshock would have started exactly like the game. We are in 1960, a plane crashes, Jack finds a lighthouse, and discovers Rapture, an underwater city where something very violent happened.
Andrew Ryan's opening monologue is even preserved. Few video game adaptations can boast of being so faithful. Directly, a mutant attacks the bathysphere. The atmosphere is calm. In terms of sets, everything is there too: the piles of corpses, the strange machines and the slugs in the toilets.

jerx-marantz-116.jpg
jerx-marantz-110.jpg
jerx-marantz-108.jpg


The young man quickly got to know Atlas through the radio. Of course, the character of Jack runs much deeper.
Bioshock was an FPS and here we follow him from a distance imposed by the staging. The young man is driven by his desire for freedom.
He spends his time wondering how the monsters and other inhabitants of Rapture react to his presence, as if it had all been done for him.
Nonetheless, he follows Atlas's directions, asking him to go see Ryans, ruler of the Sunken City.

unknown.png


Jack meets a lot of bosses and characters from the game, such as Atlas, of course, or even Sander Cohen, the striking artist in the middle of one of the most memorable fights of the adventure.
Moreover, the "work" of the psychopath in question should have resembled that of the game, showing the level of violence predicted by John Logan and Gore Verbinski.
This is the moment when Jack injects himself with ADAM for the first time, which allows him to violently erupt a slew of mutants.

jerx-marantz-109.jpg
jerx-marantz-117.jpg
jerx-marantz-115.jpg


Always watched by Andrew Ryans, he then continues on his way, meeting the famous little sisters and other Big Daddy, as well as a mysterious groom named Rudy.
At the end of his trip, he finally meets the mayor. The players know what follows and the twist for which Bioshock is famous is very present.

PowerStation13_view8.jpg
PowerStation05b.jpg


The rival of Atlas is thus smashed with great blows of "I beg you", and Jack manages to get rid of the control exerted on him, to go to face his real enemy.
The question that remains is: what ending was selected by the screenwriter? As strange as it may seem, it is indeed the wrong ending that was chosen, an end that even the developers of the 2nd opus decided to invalidate to build their story.

unknown.png
unknown.png


Throughout his description, Scott Wampler emphasizes the similarities to the games. Jack is always on the move there, something admitted in FPS, much less in blockbusters where the action sometimes needs to arise.
Better, the scenario would be of a memorable darkness and violence. The descriptions of monsters do not spare them, Big Daddy in mind. It also describes a very graphic murder of a little sister, and even a sequence where the hero has his ear torn off.

Rapture's muffled violence and creepy vibe are therefore probably the two main reasons for dropping a project that ultimately looked more like an R-rated horror film than an adventure blockbuster.

It seems like they wanted to treat it like a movie of the game rather than doing what would have worked for a movie.

Bioshock tells it's story environmentally and in retrospect because that works in a game, but it's dumb way to approach the movie.

A BioShock movie could be brilliant but the Fall of Rapture is the story. And always was. And the best way to tell that on screen is a prequel to the game.
 
Last edited:

desertdroog

Member
I still think bioshock could work as a movie. A prequel to the game Set before and during the fall of rapture, robert downey junior as andrew ryan and jude law as atlus.
They could take elements from the book, a fun B rated pulpy take on Bioshock from John Shirley.

Instead of just focusing on the player character and his journey as experienced in the game but brought to the screen, I would suggest that they deal with people making the choice to leave the surface and attempting to gain residence in Rapture before the fall. The political and philosophical battles that Andrew Ryan had to face to get his project going, perhaps fly on the wall during different points of view in the city as people made their way to contend with the fall.

At the very least I would have loved a spotlight put on Art Deco architecture and design aesthetic, if only to remind the general public that the art form has value.
 

Hugare

Member
Concept art looks gorgeous, as epexpected from something Bioshock related

But a priest in Rapture? lol

This is one of those projects that even if it failed miserably, I would have loved it for the fact that it existed

They spent ~150 M for the rights and then cancel it for good? Nothing?

Hollywood is fucking weird sometimes
 
A TV Series with the buildup of the city through its downfall and ending with Jack's story. You would have to get just the right team though because it would be expensive to make. Plus the creation of Atlas is a very different story than the downfall, which is massively removed from Jack's story after the fall. The success of the first season of Altered Carbon on Netflix shows that something this groundbreaking and violent could be done, but the second season shows how easily it can fall apart with poor writing......
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Was the script actually leaked? I'd love to read it.
Here:

The god of war movie is still a thing?
Yep, last we heard about it Jason Momoa was eyed as Kratos
 
Last edited:
Idk man. The story only works in game format. The big twist won't have the same impact if we're not in control. I don't think a Bioshock movie would be any good outside of visuals and horror potential.
Seems like the fall of Rapture and its demise could be a good movie story .
 
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