Speaking with Irrational Games figurehead Ken Levine after last week’s BAFTA Game Awards, Eurogamer unearthed an interesting fact about the planned BioShock film: it’s cancelled, and Levine pulled the plug.
Levine elaborated by saying Watchmen’s box office woes troubled BioShock’s movie studio, which pushed it to get "cold feet about making an R rated $200 million film." Suddenly, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski’s vision for the project was over-budget; without the money he needed to make things work, Verbinski dropped out.
The saga continued when another director was tapped to helm the production. Intacto director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo took the reins in Verbinski’s stead, but had a vision for BioShock that didn’t sit right with Levine. "They brought another director in, and I didn’t really see the match there – and 2K’s one of these companies that puts a lot of creative trust in people," Levine explained. "So they said if you want to kill it, kill it. And I killed it."
Levine didn’t rule out the possibility of returning to a BioShock film down the line, but maintains that the creative freedom granted by 2K was leveraged to ensure the franchise’s integrity. With BioShock Infinite nearing release on March 26, at least fans won’t have to wait long for Irrational’s next potential masterpiece.