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BioShock Movie To Be Made By Universal

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the all-that-matters-is-it's-not-uwe-boll dept.

azuredrake writes "Gamasutra reports that Universal Pictures has just announced a completion of licensing negotiations to bring the game BioShock to the silver screen. For those unfamiliar with the property, it was the much-lauded Game of the Year contender, praised for its storyline which emerged through gameplay, not just cutscenes. The director for the project is to be Gore Verbinski, who proved himself on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and the current writer for the screenplay is John Logan, who is recently known for the also-creepy Sweeny Todd."

8 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. proved himself by StrawberryFrog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The director for the project is to be Gore Verbinski, who proved himself on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy

    Proved himself what?

    I mean, did you sit through the last one?

    --

    My Karma: ran over your Dogma
    StrawberryFrog

    1. Re:proved himself by mrbluze · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, I did, and I loved it. What's your point? Someone was bound to make a comment like that to a comment like that.
      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    2. Re:proved himself by Das+Modell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      PotC is the kind of movie where funny one-liners are appropriate. What makes you think they would be included in BioShock? By the same logic you should have been worried about seeing zombies in LotR because Peter Jackson made Bad Taste and Braindead.

    3. Re:proved himself by Das+Modell · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the other hand, what do you expect with most of the source material that's been used so far? The Resident Evil movies are about as silly as the games, and Doom was a fairly faithful adaptation. BioShock has potential.

    4. Re:proved himself by Khaed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      and Doom was a fairly faithful adaptation

      Um. They made a movie about a game about demons and hell without the demons or the hell.

      It was some ancient civilization and some sort of "rage virus." Which exists nowhere in any Doom I've played.

      How exactly is "throwing out the entire fucking premise" faithful?

    5. Re:proved himself by StrawberryFrog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One-liners? I'm talking about the fact that the last movie was a turgid, overblown, special-effects-extravaganza shark-jumping mess.

      --

      My Karma: ran over your Dogma
      StrawberryFrog

  2. translation please by 1u3hr · · Score: 1, Insightful

    WTF does "its storyline which emerged through gameplay, not just cutscenes" mean in English?

    1. Re:translation please by BaronHethorSamedi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It means that the gameplay was the important story element in Bioshock.

      Which is why the film will suck.

      A key underlying theme in Bioshock is the illusion of choice--sort of a meta-commentary on gaming itself as a medium. (*Spoiler warning*) The player is placed in a broad, seemingly very open environment, invited to make choices as he participates in the story. The twist in the plot is where you find out you're really NOT a participant at all, but an automaton performing as you are expected to by outside actors. I really thought this was a rather clever response to Ebert's principal argument against "games as art"--that games as an interactive medium lack authorial control. The Bioshock authors used the interactivity to demonstrate why authorial control is paramount to the way games tell stories.

      There's no way to convey this through a film. The passive viewer loses the sense of interactivity and participation that made the game philosophically compelling. I'm sure the movie will look pretty, and I'm sure they'll spend a lot of money on it. I'm also sure it won't be able to add anything to what the game already accomplished.